March 23, 2005

business porn

I first heard the brilliant term "Real Estate Porn" when reading Gawker a few years ago. Basically, imagine a young, married Brooklyn couple reading through the property section of The New York Times, and you can just imagine, it would not be unlike college boys drooling over a copy of Penthouse.

So me and another friend were talking earlier this week about how totally obsessed thirtysomething guys like us get with "Business Porn".

Business Porn is just like Ordinary Porn or Real Estate Porn, except instead of it being about the women we wished we could sleep with, or the houses we wish we owned, it's about all those cool, lucrative, exciting jobs and businesses that we wish we had, instead of the normal, tedious, schleppy crap most of us end up doing to pay the bills.

You know, those kind of gigs that allow us access to the hot women and the nice houses.

All three are somewhat connected, if you're a guy.

Posted by hugh macleod at March 23, 2005 8:36 PM | TrackBack
Comments

Manipulating and engaging that mental process is exactly how {hollywood|the music industry|the porn industry|the video game industry|the automotive industry|etc} get their bills paid.

Anything that makes a guy grunt and point like a monkey can be converted into cash and pumped straight into the retirement fund.

Sex sells - pick your fetish.

Posted by: solios at March 24, 2005 2:59 AM

I've just started working with an investment advisor. She follows a long-term philosophy, which doesn't include what she calls "financial porn".

When I look at the glossy financial magazines and their "Hot Stocks" and "Buy Now" articles, I think about how all porn kills reality with fantasy--it's got almost nothing to do with the real thing and is never as good.

(Although if you're poor and lonely, it sure beats nothing at all.)

Posted by: Timbo at March 24, 2005 4:27 AM

As an aspiring performing musician, I made a committment earlier this year to rid my life of as much "music biz porn" as possible, so it's funny to see a similar term (with an almost identical definition if different context) pop up here.

http://www.scottandrew.com/main/entries/001181

I guess anything that provides a distorted view of reality to keep your wallet open can be classified as porn.

Posted by: scottandrew at March 24, 2005 7:10 AM

"So my co-worker and I, we're gonna write a book: 'How To Stop Reading How-to Books.'Followed shortly by a series of seminars entitled "How You Too Can Write A 'How To Stop Reading How-to Books' Book (and Earn Millions!)'"

Ha! Scottandrews; that's hilarious!!

Posted by: hugh macleod at March 24, 2005 10:55 AM

I think this already exists - it is called Fast Company....(www.fastcompany.com)

Posted by: Espen at March 24, 2005 11:12 AM

Hugh,
I'm surprised you haven't tied this "business porn" idea into your "Sex and Cash Theory" ... seems like there should be a connection there!

Maybe by comparing Sex (a person's art / passion and the associated REALITY - to borrow from Timbo's post) to the Cash (paying the bills, boring work) we can see that "Business Porn" serves a valuable function... it can be a ray of shining hope / potential for what your "Sex/Art/Passion" could become.

As you say, "the market for something to believe in is infinite" ... !

Posted by: Dave Wheeler at March 24, 2005 1:55 PM

Dave Wheeler, I would agree.

Both English Cut and gapingvoid are aspiring buisness porn, kinda sorta.

Originally, I just wanted to post cartoons and have people read them. Kinda mutated.

Posted by: hugh macleod at March 24, 2005 3:47 PM

Maybe biz porn can act as a kick-starter of sorts.

You start out thinking, "Damn, I want to win a Clio." Or "Damn, I want the corner office."

Then you head out to get it, ending up somewhere you would never imagined.

Like selling Savile Row suits and traveling to Dubai.

Posted by: Timbo at March 24, 2005 5:35 PM

I would agree, Timbo...

Bizporn ('Porn' from the Greek "pornos": postitute i.e. "pornography" is the study of prostitutes) main function is kick-starting ideas, not providing actual, good, useful, ker-chiiing information.

Think about it- how many bizporn writers were writing about how wonderful Dotcom was, 5-7 years ago? Lots.

Posted by: hugh macleod at March 24, 2005 7:39 PM

Business porn... sounds like a great name for a blog.

Posted by: Troy Worman at March 25, 2005 7:05 AM