RAGE-BAIT EROTICS VOL. 1 - HARDCORE ECONOMICS OF PORN: RAGE ON LUST (or How Porn Became Late Capitalism’s Favorite Hustle)

01/16/2026

3 min

Editor’s Note: Call it “Blandemic Beauties, Porn Stars, and the Attention Economy.” Or call it “Rage-Bait Erotics.”

Either way, we’re talking about the same thing: the way sex—our most ancient impulse—got refitted as content, packaged as scandal, and sold back to us in the dopamine-drip marketplace of late capitalism. In the end, desire isn’t private anymore; it’s algorithmic.

The Garden of Earthly Delights, Tríptico del Jardín de las delicias by Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1480–1505)

The Garden of Earthly Delights, Tríptico del Jardín de las delicias by Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1480–1505) . Copyright Museo Nacional del Prado Madrid

Intimacy and the Machine- Gamergirl Bathwater or Is Hentai Art via Various Artists

Intimacy and the Machine- Gamergirl Bathwater or Is Hentai Art via Various Artists

The Blandemic That Isn’t So Bland

“We’re in a blandemic,” declares adult performer Ari Kytsya, newly minted ambassador for Urban Decay cosmetics. Her call to “blur the bland” is less about eyeshadow and more about cultural shock therapy: a porn star fronting a teen-friendly beauty campaign for L’Oréal. Cue outrage. Cue clicks. Cue free publicity.

US-based adult performer Ari Kytsya@arikytsya, Me in Europe

US-based adult performer Ari Kytsya@arikytsya, Me in Europe via Instagram

Ambassador for Urban Decay cosmetics, adult performer Ari Kytsya

Ambassador for Urban Decay cosmetics, adult performer Ari Kytsya

Cover of Japanese men's weekly magazine Heibon Punch, first published in 1964 by Heibon Shuppan (now Magazine House)

Cover of Japanese men's weekly magazine Heibon Punch, first published in 1964 by Heibon Shuppan (now Magazine House)

What’s really on display here isn’t just makeup — it’s the economics of lust. Ari is both influencer and “mattress actress,” toggling between TikTok tutorials for 4.6 million fans and hardcore sex work on OnlyFans. She isn’t just selling lip gloss. She’s selling an economic model where sexuality, self-branding, and side hustles converge into one irresistible, rage-inducing business plan.

Welcome to the new market economy of porn — where lust isn’t a sin, it’s a revenue stream.

Carlo Mollino, Untitled - Photographs 1956-1962, courtesy of Museo Mollino. Credits La Petite Mélancolie

Carlo Mollino, Untitled - Photographs 1956-1962, courtesy of Museo Mollino. Credits La Petite Mélancolie

Illustration for Memoirs of Casanova, colour litho by Jules Marie Auguste Leroux (1871–1954)

Illustration for Memoirs of Casanova, colour litho by Jules Marie Auguste Leroux (1871–1954)

Carlo Mollino, Untitled - Photographs 1956-1962, courtesy of Museo Mollino. Credits La Petite Mélancolie

British performance artist and designer Michaela Stark, Self-portrait by Stark and Raga Muñecas, Panty Show Exhibition Milan, 2024

Carlo Mollino, Untitled - Photographs 1956-1962, courtesy of Museo Mollino. Credits La Petite Mélancolie

Desnudo reclinado, Oil on canvas, 1931 by Eduard Wiiralt. Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Strasbourg

Welcome to the Blandemic

Desire used to be idiosyncratic, a little messy, a little perverse. Now it’s branded.

The beauty industry and its algorithmic enablers have collapsed a spectrum of tastes into one optimized aesthetic: pouty lips, baby-smooth skin, surgically sculpted curves, neutral beige tones.

The endless scroll reveals an army of lookalikes—porn stars, influencers, Instagram “baddies”—all engineered by the same FaceTune filters, the same surgeons, the same Kardashian-adjacent fantasy.

This is what I call the Blandemic: a crisis of erotic originality.

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