SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- According to newly leaked documents from Edward Snowden, a British intelligence agency collected millions of images from the webcam chats of Yahoo users, with much of the footage containing sexually explicit content. Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) operated the surveillance program, code named Optic Nerve, which targeted users whether they were suspected of illicit activities or not. Just as the NSA’s domestic spying program in the United States demonstrated the astounding potential of a government-run social network -- rivaling any initiatives undertaken by Facebook or Google -- Optic Nerve is showing how public sector adult film productions can provide the highest quality porn, practically for free. The news has investors scrambling to cash in on what analysts are calling the “penultimate realization of gonzo and reality porn.”

Gonzo pornography takes its name from gonzo journalism, an allusion to the fact that in both media the author (in this case, the cameraman) becomes an active participant in the events being reported. In the world of adult entertainment, gonzo porn has become a successful genre, rivaled only by reality pornography, a reference to the popular reality television format. Like reality TV, reality porn is entirely scripted and made to look as though the actors are amateurs. The encounters are often staged to show “everyday, average citizens” engaging in unnaturally prolific sexual acrobatics with professional counterparts, who are portrayed as knowing participants in the elaborate setup.

Both niches soared in popularity around 2005, and continue to grow in demand. But audience longevity, industry experts say, remains a challenge. In most cases, frequent viewers and porn enthusiasts detect the same “amateurs” appearing repeatedly in different films, shattering the illusion of authenticity. That leads to attrition over the long term.

“The obvious scripting and editing in reality porn eventually crush its appeal. That’s why the British government’s footage is immeasurably valuable,” said Manley Caves, studio head for San Fernando’s Dixin Hohls Productions.

“Look how the NSA’s data collection efforts revolutionized social media,” he continued. “The government can now instantly predict consumer trends, automate Christmas lists to Santa Claus and offer the most robust, advertisement-free file storage and data backup system in the world. What the NSA has done to trump for-profit enterprises such as Google, Facebook and Twitter, the GCHQ is doing to adult entertainment. Only true players are going to survive this and come out ahead. Our studio has already brokered a deal with the Brits, making us the first members to penetrate this virgin territory.”

Representatives from Yahoo, however, complained of feeling violated after learning of the spy agency’s reach into their private areas.

The GCHQ said it restricted its collection by recording only one image every five minutes from users’ feeds, but critics noted that the move was intended to avoid overloading the servers -- not to suppress the amount of data being appropriated. GCHQ also restricted image searches to specific sets of “metadata,” informational tags that define essential elements of a file. But Caves pointed out that metadata can be more revealing than the government would care to admit.

“This is amazing technology. Optic Nerve was able to cull very granular levels of metadata to help analysts isolate and vet out the best files,” Caves explained. “Gender, age, measurements, weight, vocal qualities and so on. So with the Optic Nerve algorithms, it’s easy to find a sultry, exotic, curvaceous temptress with a husky voice and dirty mouth, if that’s your thing. Or if you’re into under-aged skinny white boys with freckles, ginger hair and seemingly inexhaustible reserves of energy, you can get that too. Best of all, it’s real. So real, in fact, these new porn stars aren’t even aware of their celebrity yet.”

And the happy ending? “British citizens are already paying for the service out of their taxes, so it’s virtually free,” Caves said.

2014. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License. See disclaimers.