meaning - What does "information porn" mean?


On several occasions while browsing Meta Stack Overflow, I have encountered the phrase information porn, typically used by Jeff Atwood. What does it mean?



Answer



This is a particular instance of the X porn meme template. I'm not going to provide a link for that, mostly because I don't relish what Google will try to show me if I search for it. In general, however, X porn is material of type X presented in an excessive, highly attractive format designed to elicit a strong reaction from the viewer. For example:



  • information porn (your example) would be tons and tons of information, laid out in an attractive manner that far exceeds your actual need or use for that information

  • food porn is the sort of stuff you see in cooking magazines, where gorgeous close-ups of delicious, fresh-cooked food are plastered on page after page

  • torture porn in an unfortunate trend in recent horror films where physical pain and torment of the characters is shown in excessive, nauseating detail.


And of course there's regular old porn porn.


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