EXHIBITION HALL C

BY EWEN GLASS

November 13, 2025

Shorts and hoodies like we’re in Palo Alto, not Sheffield. We settle in our seats, business leaders, tech titans. Peter-Thiel-From-Coventry shares his secret for £110, loves that it’s not what we expect: make it porn. Developing an intuitive micro-investment tool? Make it porn. An app connecting dog owners to share walks? Make it porn. Videos of people having sex? Make it porn.

I look at my fellow titans; is this real? But they’re nodding along, taking notes. Want to harvest health data by offering a feature asking ‘what would you look like as a mid-century sideboard?’ Make it porn. I’m considering refund options. Clearly this has happened before as the small-print says you can have the value of your ticket returned to you in crypto or – and I don’t quite understand this option – make it porn.

The audience is chanting now: Make it porn, Make it porn. It seems directed at me as I squeeze past them and head for the exit. Make it porn, Make it porn. The chants follow me into the lobby and into a cool Yorkshire afternoon. I buy a meal deal from The Tesco next door and decide there and then to become religious, the only place you can’t make it porn.

Ewen Glass is a writer from Northern Ireland who lives with two dogs, a tortoise and a body of self-doubt; his work has appeared in the likes of Okay Donkey, Maudlin House, HAD, Poetry Scotland and One Art Poetry. Bluesky/X/IG: @ewenglass