Recently, I was in a chat that I knew from the third word was going to be a scam1. But, there was a good chance I would have some fun with her. I was completely right about this. About five minutes into the chat, I get this quote from “her”2

“…you say your interested in content but now interested in illustrations or paintings like the fuck”

This is an amazing quote, insofar as it creates a very specific definition of “content” that is very narrow and reductive: video, maybe photographs. The idea that there is something else is beyond her imagination.

Now, I know that there are terms of art, and here, “content” is a term of art. What bothers me here is not the narrow definition of “content,” but that this becomes a narrowness not just of medium, but also message. Online, browsing images and videos, there is a bland sameness to all the images.

Some of this is genre: mirror selfies impose location, framing, and lighting restrictions3. But some of it also seems to come from codification of fetish. That is, certain markers become not just a synecdoche for the fetish, but become the fetish as a whole.

The problem there is that these markers become gatekeepers. If the marker isn’t entirely someone’s thing, they are effectively kept out of the fetish. In addition, it punishes creativity and innovation within fetishes4. Online, a flash of personality seems rare: everyone sticks with the established tropes and images.

Part of my goal at [SpunPhotons][1] to to upset these tropes. [Monday][1] [Regendering][2] and [Random][1] [Remix][2] are my main efforts, but nearly every image I do, I try to do something with 15° of yaw in it.

  1. A woman in a gay male chat room is a very strong signal that it’s a scam. ↩

  2. I’m using quotes here since I’m pretty sure this chat was at least assisted by AI, if not entirely done by AI. ↩

  3. At the very least, make sure your shower curtain isn’t covered in mildew. ↩

  4. For me, “kink” / “fetish” covers a very broad range. I don’t see much daylight between “twink” and “fisting” as sexual proclivities. ↩