Maybe We Were Wrong

Written by Smoke Signals | 31 August 2013
Posted in Articles

Maybe We Were Wrong
SMOKE SIGNALS MAGAZINE - September - October 2013

As long-time readers know, we're not hesitant to toot our own horn when one of our observations or predictions proves prescient. The best example of this, of course, is our prediction from a number of years ago that the widespread availability of commercial videos, shared on tubes, hubs and other venues in violation of copyrights and common decency, would eventually lead to a massive decline in new video production and the eventual demise of a number of producers. We were right, and haven't hesitated to trumpet that fact.

However, it seems only fair to also admit when we apparently were wrong.

For many years, we held fast to our belief that smoking fetishes developed, for the most part, because people were exposed to a ubiquitous culture of sexy smoking. When virtually everywhere you looked (in real life and on television) you saw attractive young women enjoying their cigarettes with great enthusiasm and style, it seemed incredibly natural and often glamorous to many of us. That's certainly how our own smoking fetish developed; we can even remember (with great detail) the one seminal moment when a pretty, anonymous teen girl's smoke play in a cafeteria seemed to cement our fetish for good.

That line of thinking led us to a corollary: as smoking bans took hold and the smoking rate declined, fewer and fewer young people would develop a smoking fetish. After all, they wouldn't have the incredibly sexy imagery bombarding them day and night in every conceivable location - and wouldn't grow to appreciate the sexual appeal of smoking the way previous generations had.

That even led us to downplay the theory that one critical factor in the development of a smoking fetish was the element of "risk" being taken by the smoker. Sure, the bad girl image was certainly a factor - but in our view, it just folded into the overall picture of a sexy, glamorous smoking woman. We didn't think a fetish developed, for most people, because a smoker was risking her health by the very act of smoking. After all, it's obvious from literature, movies and photographs of the decades prior to 1964 that the smoking fetish was alive and well long before the Surgeon General's report - so "risk" couldn't have played a role way back then.

Additionally, we were asked numerous times over the years by journalists doing stories on the fetish, whether we expected a huge increase in the number of people with a smoking fetish, as smoking became more and more taboo. Our answer was always an emphatic "no."

Fast forward to 2013. It's clear from our interactions with smoking fetishists, and from postings on various internet forums and sites, that there's been no decline in our number over the last twenty years - in fact, it continues to grow. Plenty of young people have developed a smoking fetish, even though the youngest among us are certainly much less likely to see sexy smoking on a daily basis than their predecessors.

So, we're led to reconsider our original beliefs. It obviously isn't simple, constant exposure to attractive female smoking which is triggering smoking fetishes among the younger members of our community. There must be something else at work as well. And in searching for an explanation, we're left with the concepts of "taboo" and "risk" as the primary candidates. We don't know what role those concepts may have played in the devfelopment of previous generations of smoking fetishsts, but they must play a large role today. And, we imagine, they played a much greater role in the past than we had imagined.

Our only real conclusion can be, at least in part, that Vesperae has been right - and we've been wrong.

It doesn't happen often, though!

Enjoy the September-October issue!

The Demise of Creativity

Written by Smoke Signals | 30 June 2013
Posted in Articles

The Demise of Creativity
SMOKE SIGNALS MAGAZINE - July - August 2013

We had the opportunity recently to go back through our collection of old smoking videos, and were struck by something we hadn't thought about before.

Many of the videos produced in the 1990s and early 2000s actually had plots or themes. Sure, the video quality wasn't as stellar as the HD video we see today; for the most part, it wasn't even digital. But there was a lot more thought put into the productions than is common today. Standouts were many of the videos from CoherentLight and SmokeVision (which even tried to distinguish their productions as "shows" instead of "videos," but even many of the vids from companies like Second Hand Smoke and Up In Smoke obviously were produced with a lot of forethought and planning.

Knowing most of the people behind those productions, we can certainly give credit to people like Steve Kelly and Ed Luisser for their work. But as we thought more about the differences between filming now and filming 15 years ago, another reason for the stark difference became apparent.

The producers who were shooting back then, had more resources at their disposal. Or, to put it more simply, they knew they could turn a nice profit on their work, even if it was more expensive to shoot. Costumes, sets, or simply the extra time it took to film and then post-produce the videos were an acceptable expense. Steve, Ed, or the others who put extra care and work into their productions knew that they could turn out top-quality work while staying profitable.

Things are certainly different today. Video producers who are still in business are doing so on incredibly slim margins. The audience for smoking video is larger than ever, but the amount spent on it is smaller than ever, due to (you knew we were headed here, didn't you?) the proliferation of video sharing sites and tubes where people simply upload clips or entire movies they've obtained elsewhere. And without sufficient money coming in, producers can't take the time or spend the money to create thoughtful or elaborate smoking videos anymore. It's become largely a "point and shoot" business. To put it simply, producers have no other option.

Regular readers know that we've been predicting the demise of the smoking video industry for some time now, and we see no reason to change that prediction. In fact, many producers are teetering on the brink even as we write this. But the way the smoking fetish community obtains and consumes video in the 2010s has had this sad, interim effect - the demise of creativity.

Enjoy the July-August issue!