The Internet Is For Porn

About

“The Internet is for Porn” is a song from the Broadway musical Avenue Q that has been absorbed in a wide variety of videos online, sometimes with images from various sources, mimicking the song’s performance, or a general affirmation of the statement that the Internet’s primary use is for pornography through user-generated images.

Origin

Avenue Q is a Broadway musical that is a loving parody of Sesame Street; the primary “cast” of the show are all puppets manned by human puppeteers that are also part of the cast, but while puppets they deal with problems of adult life in an adult manner (such as encounter racism, keeping a job and dealing with romantic relationships). The musical was first performed in 2002, but didn’t reach Broadway until mid-2003, where it began to receive significant interest in wider media. [citation needed]

One song in the musical is “The Internet is for Porn”, sung by Katie Monster (who is trying to explain the wonders of using the Internet) and Trekkie Monster (who continues to butt in and assert that in the end, these uses all are for pornography.) Approximately midway through the song, other characters (aka “normal people”) will join in to affirm Trekkie’s claims much to Kate’s disgust.

Excerpt from lyrics lyrics: (Most lines sung by Katie, Trekkie’s lines in bold.)

The internet is really really great For porn
I’ve got a fast connection so i don’t have to wait For porn Huh?
There’s always some new site,_ For porn!
I browse all day and night_ For porn!
It’s like I’m surfing at the speed of light For porn! Trekkie!

Cultural absorption

The primary meme resulting from this song was the creation of videos, in the same manner as MADs, either through compilation of clips of a given show or genre, or by using machina to create the necessary posing within a video game engine. In general, any work that has 1) a young female that plays the straight-man, 2) a male, perverted character, and 3) additionally cast to fill in the later stanzas of the song, are likely to have a video set to this song A Youtube search of the exact phrase “The Internet is for Porn” gives about 1,500 results.

Spread

One of the earliest traceable usages is around July 2004 at YTMND, under the simple title The Internet is for Porn The YTMND featured a simple picture of Cookie Monster (the likely influence of Trekkie Monster) as the song played out.

The earliest traceable video using the song is one based on World of Warcraft, created in December 2005: (Coverage from CNet)

This ties closely with the rise of the term on Google Insights:

Other examples:

Azumanga Diaoh

Phoenix Wright

Harry Potter

House, MD

The phrase “The Internet is for Porn” has also come to be considered a truism about Internet usage in general – that a seemingly majority of resources and innovation on the Internet is dedicated to pornography – thus setting it as a common theme for photo-manipulations, de-motivational posters, and similar images.

The song and the meme were brought up during the Stop Online Piracy Act congressional debates; when the subject matter turned to pornography on the Internet, Rep. Jared Polis (D, Colorado) offered up the entire song as to discuss the merits of an amendment to disallow the law to protect pornographic material. This, effectively, has put the song and meme into the public record.