
This is how the porn industry rewired the world
The Exchange | Long-form interviews from the New StatesmanShow Notes
We live in a world where as many people have instantaneous access to porn as to clean water.
At peak times, close to a tenth of internet traffic is devoted to streaming adult content. But while porn has quietly taken over the world, it seems that this industry is no longer just about sex. It's about clicks, attention, data. And while the ubiquitous and instantaneous access to pornographic content has impacted our sexual relationships and habits, it’s also deeply changed how we see the world and our own place in it.
The porn industry was the blueprint for the attention economy and the forefather of personal branding. It’s also one of the starkest examples of our phones knowing us better than we know ourselves.
Patricia Nilsson, Financial Times reporter and author of Guilty Pleasure: The Pornification of the Internet, the Economy, and Everything Else joins Oli Dugmore on this episode of The Exchange. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
More from The Exchange | Long-form interviews from the New Statesman
Since the publication of No Logo in 1999 - a critique of big brands and consumer culture - Naomi Klein has been one of the most influential voices in leftist politics in the world. In the past 3 decades, she’s explored the intersection of capitalism, war, climate, and conspiracies.
In Japan, couples can rent a grandchild in order to make them feel less bereft on special occasions. In South Korea, dog stroller sales have overtaken pram sales. And in France, deaths outnumbered births for the first time since the Second World War in 2025. So what's actually going on?
Owen Jones burst onto the scene in 2011 with his bestselling book Chavs: the demonisation of the working class. Since then his activism and journalism has followed the ebbs and flows of the left in UK politics, his own push and pull relationship with the Labour Party - which he ultimately left in 2024.
Fuchsia Dunlop has dedicated much of her life to eating Chinese food.
Alexei Sayle has never much cared for a conventional view of the world.