Rule 34 is an
Internet meme which claims that
Internet pornography exists concerning every conceivable topic. The concept is commonly depicted as
fan art
Fan art or fanart is artwork created by fans of a work of fiction and derived from a series character or other aspect of that work. They are usually done by amateur artists, semi-professionals or professionals. As fan labor, fan art refers t ...
of normally non-erotic subjects engaging in sexual behavior.
It can also include writings, animations, and any other form of media to which the internet provides opportunities for proliferation.
History
The phrase "Rule 34" was coined from a 2003
webcomic
Webcomics (also known as online comics or Internet comics) are comics published on a website or mobile app. While many are published exclusively on the web, others are also published in magazines, newspapers, or comic books.
Webcomics can be c ...
captioned, "Rule #34 There is porn of it. No exceptions." The comic was drawn by TangoStari (Peter Morley-Souter) to depict his shock at seeing ''
Calvin and Hobbes
''Calvin and Hobbes'' is a daily American comic strip created by cartoonist Bill Watterson that was syndicated from November 18, 1985, to December 31, 1995. Commonly cited as "the last great newspaper comic", ''Calvin and Hobbes'' has enjoyed b ...
'' parody porn.
Although the comic faded into obscurity, the caption instantly became popular on the Internet. Since then, the phrase has been adapted into different syntactic versions and has even been used as a verb.
On August 20, 2007, the webcomic ''
xkcd
''xkcd'', sometimes styled ''XKCD'', is a webcomic created in 2005 by American author Randall Munroe. The comic's tagline describes it as "a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language". Munroe states on the comic's website that the name ...
'' published a comic titled "Rule 34", which involved hypothetical sexual scenarios including homoerotic
spelling bees.
In 2008, users on the
imageboard
An imageboard is a type of Internet forum that focuses on the posting of images, often alongside text and discussion. The first imageboards were created in Japan as an extension of the textboard concept. These sites later inspired the creation of ...
4chan
4chan is an anonymous English-language imageboard website. Launched by Christopher "moot" Poole in October 2003, the site hosts boards dedicated to a wide variety of topics, from anime and manga to video games, cooking, weapons, television, ...
posted numerous sexually explicit parodies and cartoons illustrating Rule 34. On there, pornography is referred to as "rule 34" or "
pr0nz". ''The Dictionary of Modern Proverbs'' claims that Rule 34 "began appearing on Internet postings in 2008."
As Rule 34 continued spreading throughout the Internet, traditional media began reporting on it. A 2009 ''
Daily Telegraph'' article listed Rule 34 as the third of the "Top 10" Internet rules and laws. A 2013
CNN
CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...
story said Rule 34 was "likely the most famous" Internet rule that has become part of mainstream culture. On November 14, 2018, a
Twitch streamer
An online streamer or live streamer is a person who broadcasts themselves online through a live stream to an audience.
History
Streaming arose in the early 2010s, originating on sites like YouTube where users could upload videos of themselves i ...
nicknamed "Drypiss" celebrated his 18th birthday by posting a video to
Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
in which he looked up Rule 34 pictures; afterwards, the video and its responses were covered by ''
The Daily Dot
''The Daily Dot'' is a digital media company covering the culture of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Founded by Nicholas White in 2011, ''The Daily Dot'' is headquartered in Austin, Texas.
The site, conceived as the Internet's "hometo ...
''.
Fan fiction has eroticized numerous political figures from the
2016 United States presidential election
The 2016 United States presidential election was the 58th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016. The Republican ticket of businessman Donald Trump and Indiana governor Mike Pence defeated the Democratic ticket ...
and the
2021 Suez Canal obstruction
In March 2021, the Suez Canal was blocked for six days after the grounding of , a container ship. The vessel was buffeted by strong winds on the morning of 23 March, and ended up wedged across the waterway with its bow and stern stuck in th ...
by the container ship ''
Ever Given
''Ever Given'' () is one of the largest container ships in the world. The ship is owned by Shoei Kisen Kaisha (a ship-owning and leasing subsidiary of the large Japanese shipbuilding company Imabari Shipbuilding), and is time chartered and op ...
''. Short low-cost books called "Tinglers" have depicted
anthropomorphized
Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. It is considered to be an innate tendency of human psychology.
Personification is the related attribution of human form and characteristics t ...
dinosaurs and airplanes in sexual acts. A pseudonymous author,
Chuck Tingle, published dystopian erotica on
Brexit
Brexit (; a portmanteau of "British exit") was the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February 2020 CET).The UK also left the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC ...
, featuring sex with a giant
one-pound coin from the future, hours after the referendum passed.
Analysis
According to researchers
Ogi Ogas
Ogi Ogas is an American writer who received doctoral training as a computational neuroscientist. As of May 2016, he is a visiting scholar at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he serves as Project Head for the Individual Mastery ...
and Sai Gaddam, the reason that the maxim resonated with so many people is because of its apparent truth to anyone who has browsed the Internet.
Ogas said that following the 2009–2010 study, the consolidation of the porn industry onto large market share
video aggregator A video aggregator is a website that collects and organizes online videos from other sources. Video aggregation is done for different purposes, and websites take different approaches to achieve their purpose.
Some sites try to collect videos of hig ...
s has reduced the visibility of the niche market videos. The sites favor mainstream content directly by steering users towards it and indirectly by disadvantaging small producers who cannot afford strong
anti-piracy Anti-piracy may refer to:
* Anti-piracy, protection against copying of computer software.
* Piracy#Anti-piracy measures anti-piracy measures, measures to counter maritime pirates.
See also
* Pirate (disambiguation)
A pirate is a person who com ...
measures, bringing into doubt the ability of the rule being able to keep up with market.
Cory Doctorow
Cory Efram Doctorow (; born July 17, 1971) is a Canadian-British blogger, journalist, and science fiction author who served as co-editor of the blog '' Boing Boing''. He is an activist in favour of liberalising copyright laws and a proponent of ...
concludes, "Rule 34 can be thought of as a kind of indictment of the Web as a cesspit of freaks, geeks, and weirdos, but seen through the lens of cosmopolitanism, bespeaks a certain sophistication—a gourmet approach to life."
Feminist scholar
Susanna Paasonen summarizes Rule 34, along with versions of Rules 35 and 36 to mean that no matter how unlikely or unusual the concept, pornography of it is either available online or will be.
John Paul Stadler concluded that Rule 34 reflects the codification of
paraphilia
Paraphilia (previously known as sexual perversion and sexual deviation) is the experience of intense sexual arousal to atypical objects, situations, fantasies, behaviors, or individuals. It has also been defined as sexual interest in anything ot ...
s into social identity structures.
Variations
The original rule was rephrased and reiterated as it went
viral on the Web. Some common permutations omit the original "No exceptions."
* "Rule 34: There is porn of it."
* "Rule 34: If it exists, there is porn of it."
* "Rule 34: If it exists, there is Internet porn of it."
[Leopold, 2013.]
* "Rule 34: If you can imagine it, it exists as Internet porn."
* “Rule 34(r): If it exists, there is a
subreddit
Reddit (; stylized in all lowercase as reddit) is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and discussion website. Registered users (commonly referred to as "Redditors") submit content to the site such as links, text posts, images ...
devoted to it.”
Corollaries
* "Rule 35: The exception to Rule 34 is the citation of Rule 34."
[The rules of the internet](_blank)
, 4chan archive, February 15, 2007.
* "Rule 35: If there is no porn, it will be made."
* "Rule 36: There will always be more fucked up shit than what you just saw."
* "
Rule 63: For every given male
character
Character or Characters may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk
* ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...
, there is a female version of that character and vice versa."
See also
*
*
Clop – A slang term for either fan made or non-fan made pornography based on the animated children's television series ''
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic''
*
*
*
*
''Overwatch'' and pornography – A notable case of pornography inspired by the video game
''Overwatch''
*
*
''Rule 34'' – A novel by
Charles Stross
Charles David George "Charlie" Stross (born 18 October 1964) is a British writer of science fiction and fantasy. Stross specialises in hard science fiction and space opera. Between 1994 and 2004, he was also an active writer for the magazine '' ...
referencing this rule.
*
''Rule 34'' – A film by Julia Murat referencing this rule.
*
*
*
References
External links
Rules of the Internet1000 Rules Of the Internet
{{Pornography
Anime and manga terminology
Cartooning
Internet culture
Internet slang
Internet terminology
Pornography
2003 neologisms
Internet memes introduced in 2007
Adages