Many of us are at least somewhat familiar with the rule 34 – the idea that if something exists, there must be porn of it. Nowadays, mature content, ranging anywhere from heteronormative representations of sex to stuff inspired by fantasy creatures, has become much easier to access, pushing down the really weird stuff further back in the search engines.[1] While this is not something most of us think of daily or often at all, it has recently caught my eye through a series of TikTok videos.
A trend, revolving around the sound captured in a children’s cartoon, quite literally pictures a giant woman (or in certain TikToks men and animals) and is an interesting play of angles and aesthetics – something to enjoy and appreciate. However, never have I even anticipated that something seemingly so innocent, may be turned into fetish content or, in other words, proof of how true the above mentioned rule is.
Normally, this may not be something I’d look into – I’m a strong believer that people should post whatever they want to post (as long as it’s not harming anyone else), as literally everything can be turned into a fetish, but the trend did remind me of the sudden growth of popularity of Lady Dimitrescu, a character in the popular game Resident Evil. Lady Dimitrescu is generally known for being extremely tall and feminine presenting, traits that appear to quite often be over-sexualized and fetishized, much like the content under the “Giant Woman” trend.
Not only that, but as of recent, my TikTok feed seems to be filled with videos of people guessing what may or may not be fetish content, which has opened my eyes to just how many seemingly innocent videos may be or may be turned into fetish content online.
To an extent, this may be connected to my previous blog posts, discussing the sexualization of women in digital media or the dangers of internet to children, however, the fetishization of digital content seems to go much further than that. The above-mentioned traits – such as the portrayal of the giantess or 5-minute-crafts as something “sexy” – are just the very tip of the iceberg. Fetishization of online content goes way further than that and does not only involve pretty women or weird crafty videos – recently, I’ve encountered plenty of posts of people sexualizing fantasy creatures, ranging anywhere from vampire smut to Bigfoot erotica on Amazon.[2]
Not only that, but I have seen people discussing stepping on bugs or posting pictures of themselves wearing diapers (without really having the need to), which only proves that online content does, indeed, serve the fetish community. However, given that certain videos may very well be aimed towards certain audiences, it does seem worrying that TikTok trends using children’s cartoon sounds or monster-like video game characters can be so easily turned into sexual content. While, as I’ve mentioned above, I do believe that people should be able to post whatever they want to, particularly given the fact that everything can be sexualized nowadays, it does seem worrying that certain content, such as the My Little Pony drawing above, can be turned into something sex-related, does it not?
[1] London, Jerome. “‘If It Exists, There’s Porn Of It: The Origins Of Internet ‘Rule #34‘”. Thought Catalog, 2019. https://thoughtcatalog.com/jeremy-london/2018/03/everything-has-been-made-into-porn-the-origins-of-internet-rule-34/
[2] Albizu73, “Why Do We Keep Sexualizing Fantasy And Horror Creatures?”. Speculative Tertulia, 2021.
https://ingmaralbizu.com/why-do-we-keep-sexualizing-fantasy-and-horror-creatures/
Such a great post talking about fetishes and sexualisation of women!! This really reminds me of a TikTok video about a woman talking about a show full of men being able to do the wackiest stuff (half)naked for fun and comedy, but women will never be able to do this due to the sexualisation of women. Everything that a woman does, how innocent it may seem, will be turned into a fetish…
great post. I’m not familiar with everything you’ve talked about but I do remember hearing on TikTok that those weird craft videos were actually fetish videos. Since then I’ve seen some of those videos pop up in my fyp and I’ve always found them very uncomfortable, not too much for the fact that they are fetish videos (no shaming here) but rather because of the fact that they want to hide that. The things that they do are always a bit off and weird and it’s hard to understand why. Also, every action is over-sexualised (both in the shots and the sounds) for no apparent reason, which is particularly creepy given that the content of those videos is also very childish (the colours, the objects ad the way of talking is very similar to a kids’ show).
Personally, I have always avoided the oversexualized stuff that I found uncomfortable. Sexualized content and rule34 is a core part of the internet, existing in large amounts since the dawn of the internet. What I find unfortunate is that this sexualized and oversexualized content is difficult to avoid and is in my experience more interwoven in my daily online experience. Just like you, I’m also convinced people should be able to post what they want, but I hope there will be more division in the sexualized and non-sexualized parts of the internet.
Hi, great blog! I was actually not familiar with the exact term “rule 34“, but now it makes sense. You explain it nicely :). However, the idea behind it is somewhat gruesome, which makes your discussion quite important to share (thanks for that). At this point, it is painfully obvious that content (mostly on TikTok) is very unfiltered. But, it is also extremely hard to control and filter the content circulating on these media, too. Since there are new trends evolving every day and taking each others place in the race towards the public eye… Maybe they are even impossible to filter? I personally think that it is also a little dangerous for children who are undoubtedly using social media like TikTok, and we can only hope that the high power algorithms which are working 24/7 to learn as much about users as they could, actually filter content a tad bit.. (at least for the younger users :/).
Thank you for your blog, I enjoyed reading it! 🙂