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Uniform fetishes and sex robots – how world events affected our porn consumption in 2023

This year, Pornhub, the most popular website for adult entertainment, has once again shared exciting insights into statistics on the search behaviour of its users. From these insights it is clearly recognizable to what extent the constant media presence of earth-shattering topics like the rise of AI and ongoing wars influence us as humans. They implant themselves so strongly in our minds that they even shape our sexual desires.

With searches for robot-related terms such as ”AI robot or ”sex robot“ growing by +304% in 2023 and other connected terms like ”NPC“ (non-playable character) even increasing by over 1500%, it becomes clear how the omnipresent information about the breakthrough of artificial intelligence also stimulates our sexual fantasies.

Besides that, darker topics like the continuing wars in Europe and the world have also changed the preferences of porn consumers in 2023. The images of war that we encounter on an everyday basis have apparently burned themselves into our brains, especially those of ”soldiers“ (+332% in searches) and their uniforms (increase of 243%), which gain great popularity amongst Pornhub users.

When we think about the connection between global events and evolving sexual fantasies, the question arises: Why does this manifestation happen? Is it the power of the media and the mere-exposure effect, or perhaps even an expression of our innate human desire to process and make sense of the world around us, even in the most intimate areas of our lives?

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Julius Tami

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Tabea Höllger

Partner

Tabea Höllger specializes in brand positioning in saturated markets and measuring brand success. One of her key areas of expertise is the FMCG sector, where she focuses on topics such as product launches and the impact of packaging.

Tabea sees herself as a bridge-builder at the intersection of the FMCG market, sustainable brand management, and emerging technologies. She firmly believes that knowledge transfer between these three perspectives is essential for successfully addressing the challenges of the future.

In addition, Tabea has established herself over many years as an expert in creating engaging and memorable brand experiences. She helps companies inspire their employees to embrace and champion the brand strategy.

After gaining experience in market and advertising research and spending time abroad in the United States and the Philippines, the trained business psychologist returned to BrandTrust in 2016.

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Kees Elands

Founder & Strategist

Kees his purpose is to help ambitious leaders and brands to human-proof their business. In 2003 he founded TrendsActive, a trend consultancy enabling brands to become more human centric.

Kees consults global brands like

  • Disney
  • The Coca-Cola Company
  • Asics
  • Discovery Channel
  • Swiss Life
  • Vodafone

and many more.

Next to being the founder of TrendsActive, he is also initiator of the first academic trend master for executives at the University of Utrecht and is initiator of various trend studies and white papers on subjects like trust, meaning, visual culture & generations.

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Kim Pillen

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Before Kim Pillen started as a trend consultant at TrendsActive, she worked for four years as a creative strategist at Dept. For brands such as Philips, bol.com, Beiersdorf, JBL, and the Consumers’ Association, she built (online) campaign, brand, and social media strategies. After four years, she decided that she wanted to better understand people and society in order to advise brands more effectively. That’s how she ended up at TrendsActive. Here, she can do what she loves most: digging into people’s needs and then working with brands to see how and where they can be relevant and meaningful.

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Douwe Knijff

Researcher

Douwe is fascinated by how people work. With a background in Interdisciplinary Social Sciences (Bachelor) and Psychology (Master) and an analytical mind he tries figure out how societal shifts manifest themselves through social culture and human behaviour.

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Aljan De Boer

Keynote speaker

Aljan has been widely recognized as an inspiring professional speaker on the critical trends that will shape society in the decades to come. He works as the Head of Inspiration at TrendsActive, a trend consultancy from the Netherlands using social science to human-proof business decision for brands like

  • Disney
  • Vodafone
  • Hugo Boss
  • ASR
  • Rabobank

Next to his role at TrendsActive he is the Community Director at the Institute for Real Growth where he inspires and connects a global community of +400 CMOs.  

He has been on the board of the Dutch Platform of Innovative Marketing for almost a decade. Regular speaker and moderator for the Dutch Marketing Awards and 3 times winner of the best of MIE. 

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Kees Elands

Founder & Strategist

Kees his purpose is to help ambitious leaders and brands to human-proof their business. In 2003 he founded TrendsActive, a trend consultancy enabling brands to become more human centric.

Kees consults global brands like

  • Disney
  • The Coca-Cola Company
  • Asics
  • Discovery Channel
  • Swiss Life
  • Vodafone

and many more.

Next to being the founder of TrendsActive, he is also initiator of the first academic trend master for executives at the University of Utrecht and is initiator of various trend studies and white papers on subjects like trust, meaning, visual culture & generations.

Kees
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Kees Elands

Founder & Strategist

Kees Elands

Founder & Strategist