A sense of community is hugely beneficial for both mental and social health; a fact even true for the filthy lads over in the GoonVerse. It’s not particularly surprising that, in 2026, the era of OnlyFans models and instant serotonin gratification, such communities are emerging. Communities might be the wrong word, though; it’s more like a religion.
What is the GoonVerse?
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Simply put, The GoonVerse is a collection of primarily Discord servers where men self-pleasure to a never-ending stream of p*ornographic content. It’s like a frat house, but stickier.
It’s got its own language
To fully understand the GoonVerse, you must first subject yourself to a few graphic terms. You see, gooning has become its own internet subculture, with trends, its own language, and mediums for getting your rocks off.
First off, gooning itself. Though a simple definition is the act of m*sturb*tion, gooning takes the practice to the extreme.
“On one level, it’s a new way of m*sturb*ting that’s built around edging. If people aren’t familiar with the term, edging is when you bring yourself to the point of climax without climaxing. The goal is to hold that heightened state for as long as possible,” Daniel Kolitz, who has covered the weird corner of the internet extensively, told Vox.
Credit: Urban Dictionary
“Gooners push that to extremes. They edge for hours, sometimes for days.”
The end goal here is to enter something known as the “goon state”, a nirvana-like headspace where reality folds in on itself. It’s marketed sort of like an NSFW form of meditation, with those in the goon state reporting feelings of euphoria and bliss.
Another term is “goon fuel”, which is the pornographic material itself, and “goon caves”, which is where people do the act. It seems a lot of their language is simply shoving goon in front of normal words.
Okay, so what actually happens in the GoonVerse?
Short answer: Nothing you could tell your parents about. Though deeply more x-rated, the longer answer is super interesting.
After joining the communities on Discord and writing an experience article for Harpers, Daniel Kolitz detailed what he saw in a community with 50,000 members.
“I clicked on a stream without knowing what to expect, and it looked like a Zoom call where every square was a different person m*sturb*ting to the same video,” he said. “The camera frames were neck down, but everyone was enthusiastically going at it while chatting together.”
Though gooning over mainstream p*rn is more than possible, you’ll often find that GoonVerse members play to PMVs, known as p*rn music videos. These clips are heavily edited and described as a “rapid fire” montage of the best bits. It instantly makes you think of those old brainwashing videos from intelligence agencies like the KGB and CIA.
“Nothing stayed onscreen for more than a second or two. The cuts were constant. The pacing was frantic. It felt like a sensory assault,” Daniel added.
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