RANT AND RESPOND
Collected here are some op-ed
style commentaries from our solo reviewer Jim.
Want to respond? Write to jim (at)
pornreports.com. Bitches, whines, complaints, all welcome!
February 1/07: Video Killed the
Photography StarSome of you
might not realize this, but once upon a time you had to pay to read
dirty stories on the Internet. No shit. There were paysites that
featured nothing but erotic fiction. No pictures, even of the licensed
variety. It's not that there weren't plenty of free sites out there
with dirty stories. And the newsgroups were full of the stuff. But
still, that was pretty much the state of the art. The Internet was still
just taking baby steps and what it did best was text. Now: How many
fiction paysites are there today? I can think of a couple, by they are
truly minor players. Meanwhile, the sheer amount of free fiction
available is overwhelming. You name the niche and you'll find an archive
for it. Even audio stories (which I always hated because it was so
obvious the women reading them didn't give a damn and were just rushing
to the end to get their money). Why did this happen? In part because
erotic fiction is a kind of porn that anyone can do it. You don't need
to hire a model or have any real talent beyond being able to write
(adult comics, in comparison, will still cost you money). And you can
even stay anonymous if you want. In other words, it was easy. But the
other thing that killed commercial porn fiction on the Internet was
simply the evolution in the technology. Pictures came and stole our
hearts. A picture is worth a thousand words, and soon we were being
deluged in thousands--nay, millions!--of pictures. The reason I bring
up this back story is this: I think we're going through another such
shift today. When it comes to porn, video is killing photography. For
a while most video sites tried to give a tip of the hat to still
photography. What this mostly meant was a series of vidcaps to go with
the videos. To be honest, I never understood the point of these except
as a preview for the videos. The pictures themselves were randomly
selected, some of them way out of focus or underlit or sometimes not
even featuring any figures at all if the camera was moving around.
Occasionally however they included some studio pics that weren't vidcaps.
Unfortunately, these were invariably pics taken during the filming of
the video. Better quality than the vidcaps, but nothing different. Plus
the fact that they were taking them while the video was being shot meant
that the video itself was constantly being interrupted by flashes and
the sound of shutters snapping. In other words,
the photos were just a kind of "extra." And not much of an
extra at that. The big exception to this rule
was always the actual studio photographer sites. Names like Suze
Randall, Hegre Art, MET Art, etc. But as time went by it became clear
that these sites too would have to become more video oriented in order
to compete. Which they have done, in most cases. And their video quality
often among the best you'll see anywhere. But the actual content of the
video is often kind of dull. A lot of behind-the-scenes stuff and
softcore posing. Given where these sites are coming from I don't know
how it could be otherwise. My point in all of
this is that, while there are awesome erotic photography sites out there
now, I think the culture of Internet porn is moving unavoidably to total
video hegemony. People will still want high quality erotic pics for
their wallpapers, but what they're really interested in when they join a
new site is invariably the amount and the quality of the video. I have
to confess that when I go to check out a site now, unless it's
specifically selling itself as a photography site I usually skim through
the picture galleries pretty quickly and concentrate on the video. And
if that's the situation now, what are things going to look like five,
ten years from now when everybody's going to be downloading HD video.
Photography can only advance so far in terms of resolution and size. And
who wants to look at 6000 pixel pics anyway? Bigger isn't always
better. So will still photography
eventually become nothing more than a vintage specialist niche?
Will it truly become an "art," that is to say, something
economically endangered? My prediction is: Yes.
So enjoy it now while you can.
Archive: April
23/05: What I Think About DRM
May 1/05: What
Is a Fair Price?
May 10/05: What's With
All These Review Sites?
May 17/05: Is
Reality Porn Over?
May 29/05: Feminist
Porn
July 2/05: What's
So Funny?
January 5/06: Fantasy
vs. Reality
January 18/06: The
Trial Trap
February 7/06: On
Personality
March 4/06: Making
the Grade
March 14/06: "Best
Before" Dates
March 24/06: Picking
the Best Video Site
May 2/06: Top
10 List of Things to Get Rid Of
July 8/06: Jaded
August 21/06: Declaration
of Bias
September 23/06: Overrated/Underrated
November 2/06: Thoughts
on the 2006 PRA Nominations
December 2/06: Help!
I Can See
Britney's Pussy -- and I Don't Want To!
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