• The Butterfly Effect with Jon Ronson

  • By: Jon Ronson
  • Narrated by: Jon Ronson
  • Length: 3 hrs and 25 mins
  • 4.1 out of 5 stars (13,935 ratings)

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The Butterfly Effect with Jon Ronson  By  cover art

The Butterfly Effect with Jon Ronson

By: Jon Ronson
Narrated by: Jon Ronson
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Publisher's summary

From best-selling writer Jon Ronson and the executive producer behind the TED Radio Hour and Invisibilia, Audible Originals presents a new seven-episode series, The Butterfly Effect with Jon Ronson.

[Contains explicit content] Hear the story of what happened when the tech industry gave the world what it wanted: free porn. Lives were mangled. Fortunes were made. All for your pleasure. Follow writer and narrator Jon Ronson as he uncovers our web of desire.

About Jon Ronson:

Known for exploring the fringes of society, Jon Ronson is a best-selling writer, noted documentarian, and screenwriter – including the award-winning Frank and critically acclaimed Okja. He is the author of international hits So You've Been Publicly Shamed, The Men Who Stare at Goats, and The Psychopath Test, amongst others. A TED Talk favorite, Ronson is also a regular contributor to public radio's This American Life, the New York Times magazine, and GQ magazine.


A Note from Jon:

Hi everyone,

Welcome to The Butterfly Effect. It's sort of about porn, but it's about a lot of other things. It's sad, funny, moving and totally unlike some other nonfiction stories about porn - because it isn't judgmental or salacious. It's human and sweet and strange and lovely. It's a mystery story, an adventure. It's also, I think, a new way of telling a story. This season follows a single butterfly effect. The flap of the butterfly’s wings is a boy in Brussels having an idea. His idea is how to get rich from giving the world free online porn. Over seven episodes I trace the consequences of this idea, from consequence through to consequence. If you keep going in this way, where might you end up? It turns out you end up in the most surprising and unexpected places.

So if you're thinking, why do I want to listen to a show about the tech takeover of the porn industry, I have two things to say:

1. Why wouldn't you want to listen to a show about the tech takeover of the porn industry? That's a great idea for a show.

2. Would you want to listen to a show about three women destroying a mysterious Norwegian man's stamp collection? Well, that happens at the end of episode 2. At the end of Episode 3 a woman becomes convinced that she played a part in a murder committed by an Italian priest. At the end of Episode 4 a boy in Oklahoma is forced to move to a house on the very, very edge of his town.

I hope you like our show,

Jon Ronson

If you don't already have the Audible app, download it now, in the iOS App Store or the Google Play store to listen to The Butterfly Effect.

©2017 Audible Originals LLC (P)2017 Audible Originals LLC

What listeners say about The Butterfly Effect with Jon Ronson

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Canada

This is good journalism. It was entertaining and interesting. I did not feel that Jon supported either side and he certainly gave us things to think about. As one reviewer mentions, this is more about how tech and it's ability to make porn free have changed the whole business and how accessible it has made porn. While he talks about teens and how they are viewing porn, it is also a microcosm of how tech is changing the world.

One porn producer is upset about how difficult it has made his life, yet this is how tech has changed everybody's lives for the good and bad. I once dreamed about retiring and buying a used book store. I love books and love to be around them. I have a library in my house. I used to go to bookstores all the time. When my wife and I would go on vacation, we would spend a lot of time going to used book stores in the towns we traveled through. Now I listen to books through audio and write reviews. I rarely buy a hard copy. I will never buy a copy of this book, even though I liked it. Used books stores are going out of business along with the new book stores all across America. My dream is dead, yet I am part of the reason. Radio Shack and Video stores no longer exist. I drive a truck for a living and they are talking about self driving vehicles.

There is some good and some bad to this revolution.

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65 people found this helpful

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Dark and disturbing with flashes of hope.

While the business aspect of this story was interesting, the obvious human toll is completely tragic. More so because of its avoidable nature. Like the opioid epidemic, I feel this epidemic is effecting our society to a much greater extent than we first thought. The main difference is porn is more wide spread and effects far more people. Alarming stats, well written, and done from a humanistic angle this is a disturbing but worthwhile ADULT listen.

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52 people found this helpful

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Ignores large issue

Interesting listen, but unforgivable that it ignored the rise in sex trafficking due to the rise of free porn. For a story about the unintended consequences of free internet porn to leave out the most tragic impact it has is ridiculous.

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42 people found this helpful

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fantastic as always!

Ronson is a fantastic narrator and storyteller. This was touching, strange and beautiful, as well as disturbing at times. definitely worth a listen.

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38 people found this helpful

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A different look at how porn has affected society

An interesting look at the people who make porn in a rapidly changing world. This series is not so much about porn but how evolving technology has changed the way the porn industry functions.

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37 people found this helpful

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Great listen!

I enjoyed how tasteful this book was around the topic of sex and how compassionate the writer was. He exposed the evolution of porn in such a an interesting and engaging way!

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34 people found this helpful

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Jon Ronson is Hunter S. Thompson on Xanax

Jon Ronson is one of the funniest, wittiest, most original voices in investigative journalism today. His style reminds me of a less-coked-up version of Hunter S. Thompson. This works well for him because he puts his subjects at ease, while he extracts the juicy bits.

Jon is the PERFECT man to explain the evolution of free internet porn, and he knocks this assignment out of the park! I only wish it were maybe 4 times longer. There's so much deeper he could've gone into the seedy underbelly of the porn world, and how it's disintegrating from its base - mutating into something much darker and more dangerous than it already was. That aside, there is NOTHING I would fix about this program (it's not a book, FYI).

I highly recommend it for anyone who has ever masturbated to free porn.

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33 people found this helpful

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Another quirky fantastic story by Jon Ronson

Jon Ronson points his gaze on the porn industry and takes an uncompromising look at the social impacts of free porn on the culture and youth of today. Filled with tenacity, great interviews and unexpected insights into our common humanity, this is Ronson at his finest.

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Pros and Cons of free porn.

I have to admit the only reason why I got this is because it was free. i am so glad I gave this a chance. This podcast, interview, investigative journalism really made me think of what actually happens when porn becomes free. Jon Ronson does a very good job being objective. He not only follows the Grandfather of free porn but also the actors, the victims of free porn, the people who have anxiety becuase of the easy access.

I will never think of Pornhub the same way again.

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    3 out of 5 stars

Creative thesis. Weak narrative.

Interesting topic. It focuses on the idea of how Pornhub service that provides free porn have affected the world by using the metaphor of butterfly effect throughout the series.

However, the points that were used in the documentary have struggled to be effectively persuasive to how they are related to the main topic of the documentary.


It does on the other hand present some fascinating stories about the porn world and how it affects teenagers and its impact on the consumers.

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19 people found this helpful