The Rise of Gooner-Consumerism

Part of why I started this site was, yes, I like boobs. But more importantly, I like WOMEN with big boobs. Or, at the very least, a personality big enough that it feels like they have big boobs; hence BTE.

I have a type. I don’t apologize for that. 

I love massive honkers so much that I saw Straight Talk, a Dolly Parton rom-com with James Woods, multiple times at the dollar theater. Okay, yes, I was twelve, but the point still stands. The point being hooters, hooters, hooters, yum, yum, yum. 

Except that having a type doesn’t equal exclusivity. In other words, if I were to care solely about the breasts, that would be a true form of objectification. I would be ignoring the woman in favor of merely a part of her. There are men like that, but I’ve never understood them. 

Perhaps that’s why I've never really felt comfortable in those kinds of spaces. Worse, is how extreme objectification too often lacks any interrogation of why we like what we like. (Objectification of all genders in art is normal, and arguably healthy.) I don’t mean trying to figure out the root cause of a fixation; rather, thinking critically about what moves you, how it moves you, and why.  

This bit right here seems to be vanishing from online conversation. Everything is labeled "content" and aimed at gooners and their mindless quest to turn everything into porn. But if everything is porn-then nothing is. Or more to the point, if everything is hardcore, then we lose the beauty of softcore; the beauty of nuance and degrees.

It's gooner-consumerism, capitalism by another name, run amok. I'm not trying to lay the blame of late-stage capitalism at the feet of gooners. But the two mindsets are eerily similar. The mindset of always consuming, constantly gooning, never satisfied, always needing more, more, more, more. The quest and hoarding of things, not art, things, for no reason other than because they simply feed your desire for a dopamine hit. The plateau of satisfaction, however, is fleeting. 

Gooner-consumerism has infected everything, even movies. Letterboxd tracks the movies you’ve seen, allows you to log reviews, as well as keeping track of stats in your viewing habits. Movie critics and film journalists will put up some truly impressive numbers, thanks to the demanding job and the festival circuit, along with people on film podcasts. But some people have numbers per year that feel like they’re just watching movies to consume them. To consume them, not to watch them, or be swept away by them, but merely to tick them off a box, or add to their stat page.

Like so many habits in the modern world, the theme is consume, goon, collect them all, gotta see ‘em all, gotta goon to them all. Everybody is so busy putting up numbers, nobody is bothering to even think about what they have ingested. What moves you? What warms you? Don’t you wonder why certain things make you feel a certain way?  

Why does this model, actor, or singer constantly hit for you while others rarely do? If you have an answer, then you'd better be careful, you’re developing a personal taste. Gooners hate that. Gooner-consumerism rebels against it. It's easier than ever to have no taste. The algorithm will happily feed our gluttony for fear we might develop individual taste. Individual tastes make it harder to target ads, harder to manage, and harder to exploit.

I’m sorry, but I flat out refuse to live like that. I may not read a hundred books a year or see two thousand movies a year, but damn it, at least I think about what I’ve read, what I’ve seen. The same goes for models and women I find attractive. If you were to poll me, yes, you would find I have a dizzying encyclopedic knowledge babes from screen icons to social media stunners. And yes, a majority of women I fancy would have bra sizes in the double to triple letters farther down the alphabet.

I don’t hide my love of bazooms. Part of my love for Russ Meyer is because I feel a kinship with him. We both worship at the altar of knockers. However, Meyer liked women, and a shocking number of melon felons do not. 

My love of bunker busters has more to do with the whole woman than merely the strain of their over-the-shoulder boulder holders. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, because it bears repeating: the jugs don’t make the woman; the woman makes the jugs. 

Kate Upton has a decent rack. She's also a bad model. She just is. I don’t care what you think she’s done for plus-size women, because in truth, she hasn’t done anything. She doesn’t even like talking about why she’s a model.  

Furthermore, and this is important, Upton isn’t plus-size. 

Calling Upton plus size shows how warped the needle on the scale has become. The way we treat women above a certain cup size as a society is a different article altogether. (Suffice to say, y’all owe Sydney Sweeney an apology.) Worse, saying Kate Upton broke the glass ceiling for big bust models is a form of Denise Milani erasure, and I won’t stand for it. 

The worst thing about gooner-consumerism is that it breeds a culture filled with people with no taste. Like those philistines who only watch MCU movies and clutch their pearls when the director exerts some shade of personality. Few things are as bad or as boring as having no taste. 

No taste is worse than having bad taste. Bad taste shows a sense of self and frequently requires a unique way of looking at a thing. I know some people who think Highlander 2: The Quickening is not only good, but the best Highlander film in the franchise. Madness! But I'll tell you what, that person is going to have a reason, and whether I agree with it or not, it's going to be a buck wild hoot.

Bad taste is at least an opinion rooted in both a strong personality and understanding of the art. These opinions often have a verve that gooners lack. Bad taste is at least interesting and often shows signs of perspicacity. Bad taste often stems from a deep understanding of a thing, spiced with a desire to repudiate popular trends. It differs from mere contrarianism in its sincerity and by the simple virtue of understanding why they like what they like. Whereas no taste often signals no understanding of how anything is made and a staggering inability to critically look at a work.

You see this everywhere, even on the so-called progressive side. When they’re not denigrating sex workers and telling people that sex is degrading, they will tell you to disavow problematic work. Now, while I endorse ignoring towering works like BIRTH OF A NATION, that is because so much of its legacy is built on a lie. But even while the film belongs in the dustbin of history, it’s important to sit with it as something that has dominated the American consciousness within artistic spaces. 

Problematic art is rarely easily defined and more often very messy. Why someone responds to a work of art is worth looking at, but also acknowledging that a work of art can move you is vital. Steeped in well-meaning intentions though it may be, banish problematic art discourse often accompanies anti-sex discourse, and because we as a society can’t help but think of sex when we see a gargantuan pair of honkers, we become anti-big rig haulers. Big tits matter because it remains the one constant sure to offend fascists of every stripe. 

If you are still reading this, you may be wondering what all this has to do with overflowing bouncy hooters? The answer is simple: Everything.

The real danger of gooner-consumerism is the death of the self. Death of self, meaning a death of an inner life devoid of introspection. It becomes an inability to think, wherein you cannot hold conflicting opinions in your mind without melting into a 4chan rage beast. It’s how you get to a point where gooners will call the faces of everyday women, no doubt cute and attractive, “face-porn.”  

Critical thinking allows you to understand the difference between Angela White, Sabrina Carpenter, Candy Charms, Grace Boor, Denise Milani, and the girl next door, because all of those women are different. Personally, I find Boor, well, boring. But many gooners will lump her in with the likes of Milani or White, and it only shows how they’re so busy gooning they can’t even be bothered to look at what they’re actually gooning to; gooner-consumerism in a nutshell. A celebration not of quality or desire but merely abdicating the life of the mind in favor of fleeting and forgettable dopamine highs. 

It corrodes the boundaries between fantasy and reality. It’s how you get to people demanding fictional characters who never do, think, or say anything problematic. Gooner-consumerism deadens your senses to the point where you care more about the cup size of a video game character than the rights of the person next to you. Or even the context of the game itself. Granted, I am a huge proponent of jiggle physics in all art and take great delight in mocking puritans who find the mere presence of anything over a D-cup obscene. But I save my real ire for the real fucking world, which, if you haven’t noticed, isn’t going great. Granted, if I were writing a review, that would be one thing, but even then, the sum of the art is bigger than cup sizes.

Escapism is vital to the human experience. But if all you do is escape, then you eventually forget how to live. 

The Gaze will be a place where you can come and look at bouncy milkers, admire full-chested women, and most importantly, think. I will not be posting about the same three women you see posted all over the internet. Unless you think Sydney Sweeney is one of the three, because you best believe I will be talking about the most audacious firebrand icon of the cleavage aesthetic of our time. The Gaze is my corner of the internet and, as such, will reflect my tastes and my thoughts.

I’m not here to feed gooners, try to game the algorithm, or start a red-pill cult. I have zero real estate in the manosphere. I have a life, a wife, and a job, and fuck all patience for trying to be hip, cool, or trendy.

Go Dodgers!