It seemed increasingly plausible that, faced with this onslaught, some percentage of psychically defenseless men would simply crumple, follow the platforms’ logic, and start watching porn full-time.
[…]
Over hours of focused trawling, I couldn’t identify a single rigorous study of gooning culture; cybersexologists, having quantified every twitch and spasm of the online erotic imaginary, had overlooked the gooners almost entirely.
[…]
From these [Internet tech] companies’ perspective, the ideal consumer would do literally nothing but goon, lose at gambling, and maybe watch other people play video games. You can try to fight this. You can read a book, pet a dog, buy a stupid box to lock away your phone. You can make a joke about the box, about the absurdity of your need for it. What do these companies care? They’ve won. If they have their way—and they usually do—in time we will all be gooners, of a kind.
[…]
Is there a timeline, a regulatory environment, in which the internet does not turn into a highly efficient manufacturer of niche suicide cults? I find it hard to imagine.
Source: The Goon Squad, by Daniel Kolitz (Illustration by Melcher Oosterman) https://harpers.org/archive/2025/11/the-goon-squad-daniel-kolitz-porn-masturbation-loneliness/?lid=1szoubge35fc