About

Gooning is a slang term referring to a sexual practice that involves a person masturbating to pornography for prolonged periods of time without climaxing (a process known as "edging") in order to achieve "the goon," a so-called sensation of full mental numbness and dissociation from anything unrelated to the process. Starting in late 2022, the practice started gaining widespread recognition online, inspiring memes and references about Goon Caves and Gooning Kits.

History

The term "gooning," derived from "goon" in its slang meaning of "stupid person," has been used to describe chronic masturbators who can think of nothing else since at least 2005. On August 18th, 2005, Urban Dictionary^[1] user jackinjason added the earliest definition of the term to the site, describing it as "the act of […] getting so into masturbating that the dude becomes at total goon; becomes stupid on his own cock." The definition garnered over 850 thumbs up in 18 years.

On February 10th, 2012, Urban Dictionary^[1] user FunkyJerker added a more detailed explanation of the term, defining gooning as "that state usually achieved after a prolonged edging session, when a man becomes completely hypnotized by the feeling radiating his penis."

The gooning fetish usually involves an obsession with pornography to the point of addiction, with so-called "gooners" sometimes referring to themselves as "pornosexuals." Other notable elements of the subculture are "goon caves," dedicated masturbation rooms with multiple computer screens that all show pornography at the same time.

The fetish subculture remained relatively obscure until 2019 when several Reddit communities for it were founded. On May 1st, 2019, the subreddit /r/GOONED^[2] (currently the largest gooning community on Reddit) was created, garnering over 900,000 followers in four years. On the subreddit, users share various materials related to gooning, including porn clips and image macros that encourage pornography addiction (examples shown below).

On May 24th, 2019, the subreddit /r/GoonCaves^[3] was established with users sharing photographs and videos of their dedicated gooning rooms.

On November 20th, 2020, MEL Magazine^[4] published an article about "gooning," describing those who engage in the fetish as "masturbators […] who travel furthers for self-pleasure."

Use in Memes

On March 3rd, 2020, Redditor SevenTen01 posted a photograph of their "emergency gooning kit" showing a laptop and charger, lube and hard drives containing 6 terabytes of pornography to the /r/GoonCaves^[5] subreddit (shown below).

The image received viral spread through reposts on iFunny^[6] and Reddit,^[7] which in turn drew initial public attention to the fetish.

Starting in June 2021, gooning and goon caves started being referenced in memes on iFunny. On June 15th, 2021, iFunny^[8] user TurboJew (aka TurboGuy4K, also responsible for the popularization of Sissy Hypnosis memes two years earlier), posted the earliest discovered GIF caption meme referencing "goon caves," with the post gaining over 320 smiles in two years (shown below, left). On July 4th, 2021, iFunny^[9] user Sectionalism posted a Clash Royale meme that gained over 310 smiles in the same period (shown below, center).

On iFunny, the joke gradually evolved to combine with other sexual practices and slang such as "jelq," "deef" and "squirm." For example, on February 10th, 2022, iFunny^[10] user FunnerFishe2 posted one such GIF caption meme that gained over 550 smiles on the app in one year.

Following a period of use on iFunny in 2021 and 2022, memes about gooning and goon caves spread further to TikTok and Twitter in late 2022. For example, on November 20th, 2022, gimmick Twitter^[11] account @dril posted a joke that gained over 820 retweets and 9,300 likes in four months (shown below, left). On March 4th, 2023, Twitter^[12] user @Chamillionsoc posted a meme that gained over 210 retweets and 2,000 likes in two weeks (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References