The Next iPhone and the True Meaning of Gadget Porn

What the marketing of gadgets and girls have in common

This week, a tech site known as MacMixing released a video claiming to feature the next generation of iPhones. As I watched the three and a half minute video, in which the rumored phones are caressed, examined, and opened up for curious fanboy eyes, I had a strong feeling of familiarity. And then it hit me. I was watching gadget porn.

“Porn” is often used to describe sensuous, lush marketing materials used to make consumers salivate over a product. We hear of food porn, furniture porn, real estate porn, and, yes, gadget porn; more often than not, the “porn” in question is merely beautiful photographs that make us lust after products we desire (and usually can’t afford). But that’s not really what I mean when I call this video porn. No, it’s not just that it creates a feeling of desire: on a much more basic level, this video replicates the tried and true formula of countless erotic films that have come out of the San Fernando Valley.

There’s a certain formula to mainstream pornography: an order to the acts (blowjob before intercourse), a standard series of sex positions, and, of course, the ubiquitous facial climax. And though it doesn’t always make its way to the tube sites that provide most viewers with their pornography, quite a few scenes — especially gonzo scenes, which eschew plot for more time spent on sex — begin with a short segment known as the tease. If you’ve watched an adult DVD, you’re probably familiar with the trope: a scantily clad girl appears, gyrating her hips and stripping as the camera pans its way across her body, lingering on her various erogenous zones. There’s no dialogue, and more often than not, there’s a throbbing, pulsing soundtrack featuring some wordless electronic music. In other words, it’s more or less MacMixing’s video, but with a naked woman in place of a stack of iPhones.

The similarities between the two are so intense that watching the MacMixing video felt somewhat illicit, like something I shouldn’t be doing in public. The slow camera angles, the throbbing beat, the hotly anticipated disrobing: it was triggering all the points in my brain normally stimulated by adult entertainment — and doing it in a much more authentic way than any other “gadget porn” I had experienced in the past.

Not that this video exists in a vacuum: you don’t have to search too hard to find numerous other videos of gadgets, displayed and posed and visually examined with the detail and attention usually reserved for an object of sexual desire. Every time Apple releases a new product, a sensuous video follows, with head designer Jony Ive narrating as the camera lovingly examines the new gadget’s curves. And lest you think that the erotic treatment is solely reserved for Apple products, consider these promos for Microsoft’s Surface and the Nokia Lumia 920.

If the overlap between the marketing of sex and tech confuses you, it shouldn’t. Consider the following: both pornography and gadgets are considered the domain of young men. If both camps are using the same marketing tricks, it may be because they’ve independently unlocked the secret of stealing the young male focus. Or maybe, at the end of the day, it’s that pornography — like all products — is highly driven by marketing. Take away the prurient nature of the tease scene, and you’ve got some basic marketing tips and tricks. If they work to make us lust after the human body, why shouldn’t they work with gadgets too?