It’s not a custom of VG247 to link to porn on the front page, but /r/powerwashingporn/ doesn’t deal in matters of the flesh. Instead, it’s intended to satisfy the soul. More than a million “aficionados” log in, during the spare moments of stressful days, to see dirt stripped from patios by high-pressure hoses.
“Kirsty [Rigden], my wife and business partner, had been a member for a number of months,” says James Marsden, creative director of FuturLab. “There’s etiquette to those videos – if an upload is not done in a certain, meticulous fashion, it gets rejected. You’re not allowed to do it barefoot, because that might stress people out.” The same phenomenon is happening on YouTube: videos with NSFW titles like Pressure Washing Sweet Old Lady’s Nasty Dirty Brick Steps For Free get millions of views. Except what’s on offer is perfectly innocent – the binary gratification of seeing muddy steps made gleaming, brick by brick.
“There’s something there,” Marsden realised. “The idea of making a simulator where all you do is clean in this very precise, razor-like fashion – you’re effectively going to have the exact same experience, but you’re going to be in control. It’s going to be more satisfying.”
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