If it exists, there is porn of it — no exceptions.
Supposedly originating and popularized by the 4chan
imageboards, this was the first near-universally agreed-upon
Rule Of The Internet. It is so well founded and documented with
irrefutable proof that even those with only a cursory awareness of the Internet are aware of this rule even if they don't know it has a name.
While the original architects of the Internet had grandiose goals of research and data sharing,
the second it fell into the hands of Joe Everyman, it became a tool for one thing and one thing only:
pornography! Now, it's not that everyone online is just looking for pornography; it's just that it's very
very easy to come across. Even if you're not looking for it! Don't believe us? Do a Google image search (filters off) of, well, pretty much anything. Sometimes even with the filters
on.
The key reason the scope of it is so wide and bizarre lies in what some have come to call
Rule 36: "If you've thought of it, then there's somebody out there with a
fetish for it." (And incidentally, by "it" we mean "anything that exists in the world.")
There's also
Rule 35, basically a guarantee that Rule 34 will remain true: "If there is no porn of it, it will be made". This basically means that if you notice you can't find porn of something, and point it out, somebody will be happy to draw/write/find it for you in pretty short order.
Finally, there is the concept of quantum porn. "Referring to a type of previously non-existent porn will cause online porn of that type to come into being retroactively." Nobody takes this seriously, so far as is known.
You may wish to keep a bottle of
Brain Bleach handy while proving Rule 34. See also
Rule 63, which gets mixed up with this. And if you DO
go hunting to prove this rule false, say good-bye to your childhood first...
Compare
Sexy Whatever Outfit (a non-pornographic
Sister Trope), and
Freud Was Right.
Not to be confused with US federal courts'
Rule 34
. Or Rule 34 of the
Evil Overlord List (dealing with the trope
Scaled Up). Or
The 34th Rule, a
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine book (the 34th Rule of Acquisition reads "
War is good for business"). Or
Wolfram's Rule 34. Or
Charles Stross's novel
Rule 34 (although it is the origin of the Stross title).
Nobody's sure if it's a coincidence that
Lyons Township High School's rule book has #34: No Pornography; mostly because nobody's ever dared to ask.
No examples, please. This applies to everything (except for Discworld, illustrated on several websites), so the list would be as long as ... everything.
* Except for Simtunes.
Also, we're not really interested in being the Net's "How To Find Rule 34 Stuff." That's what
this site is for.
For a list of creator reactions to the phenomenon that are definitely not examples,
see here.
