The Big Data Porn Lexicon

Last week at TEDx Amsterdam I listened to a talk of Rory Sutherland, aka the ‘fat bloke of Ogilvy’. He used the word ‘measurebation’ to explain that measuring human behavior – read The Economy – is a useless exercise. Measurebators just want to measure everything, even if it is about measuring stuff that can’t be measured. Sutherlands take is that measurement doesn’t belong in social sciences, measurement is something for physicists like Einstein. Financialisation of human behavior by counting everything we do in numbers is worthless. I was intrigued by his sexualisation of the word measurement and started this little data porn lexicon. If you want to add some words, please feel free to respond on this posting. Measurebation To derive pleasure from obtaining or analyzing measurements Joe: I think it needs to go three millimeters your way… Frank: Stop that measurebation, just set it down! (Urban dictionary) Measurebator Someone obsessed with measuring. Originated in digital camera sub cultures like the Pentax Measurebators, who count all the specs of new versions of their camera’s. People who know more about the specs than they know of making good pictures. Data whores Passive data providers. You and me. The masses that are milked. The money that comes from them go to the Big Data Pimps. (Big) Data Pimps Companies that milk, mine and sell personal data. Management Porn Excel sheets Datapornocracy Pornocracy refers to a period of the dark age from 867 to 1049 when popes where influenced strongly by their concubines that came from corrupt aristocratic families. Datapronocracy: a new dark era. Some say somewhere in the near future, when governments are ruled by corrupt data. Others say it has arrived already and its the called Economic Science. Data Sexuals Quantifiers. People from the quantified self movement. Those who meausure their daily life, analyse and share their insights. The data sexual looks a lot like you and me, but what’s different is their preoccupation with personal data. They are relentlessly digital, they obsessively record everything about their personal lives, and they think that data is sexy. In fact, the bigger the data, the sexier it becomes. Their lives – from a data perspective, at least – are perfectly groomed. (See Dominic Basulto Big Think). Save Data Sex Something that not everybody is aware of. People are preoccupied doing the act, without thinking about their safety.