FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – In the days before algorithmic suggestion engines began giving tips on what else we might want to read, listen to, buy or think, we had to rely on far more questionable sources, like family members, friends and crazy people at bus stops.

These days, helpful algorithms filled with data-driven suggestions are all over the place, from Netflix and Amazon to porn tube sites and news aggregators. It’s amazing what you can learn just by following their suggestions, including relationships between people and entities that previously had escaped your notice.

Take, for example, this recent article from The Sun (drawn entirely from a TMZ report) about a porn star who says New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski would make a great porn performer. I not only learned several interesting things from the article, but by way of some “related news” links, I got hip to a bunch of other connections between the porn and mainstream worlds that I otherwise never would have known.

First, let’s cover what I learned from The Sun article: Ryan is a “legend of the adult entertainment industry.” Apparently, to reach legendary status in the porn industry, all one must do is star in “over 200 X-rated films.” This means the last couple years have produced roughly 431,000 porn legends, approximately three-fifths of whom have alliterative names.

I also learned what the qualifications are for a guy to have serious potential as a male porn performer, at least as proscribed by porn-legend Rochambeau Ryan, or Roquelle Rachmaninov, or Raspberry Rectuma or whatever her name is.

“He’s just a total frat boy and a playboy,” Ryan said of Gronk. “He wants to have fun, and he’s just awesome. He is big all-around and the total party boy.”

I think we can all agree these are fine qualities in a porn performer, provided he can achieve an erection on camera in a room full of strangers without the aid of an injection. After all, what porn studio these days could afford to provide regular BiMix injections for a guy the size of Gronk? I mean, they may as well hire a horse. (Come to think of it, the horse might have more success remembering his lines.)

At any rate, thanks to the helpful “related news” links displayed on the right-hand side of the news aggregator where I found the article about Rapunzel Rohypnol talking about Gronk, I know there are also connections between her, Gronk and porn to a litany of other subjects. These subjects include Donald Trump, Facebook, “the finger,” revenge porn, Damian Green, the President of the United States, Paul Stephenson, the New England Patriots and nude photography.

Some of the connections suggested here are obvious, like the New England Patriots. Gronk plays for them and it has been suggested he’d make a good porn star, so the Patriots are dragged into this mess by way of paying a ridiculous sum of money to a football player who is also a “party boy” and “big all-around.”

Donald Trump, who is also bigly all-around (other than his hands), isn’t much of a party boy, but he is President of the United States and friends with both Tom Brady, who throws a lot of passes to Gronk, and Bob Kraft, who signs Gronk’s checks. I also believe Kraft is the man behind a certain variety of macaroni and cheese, which I bet President Trump likes to eat while he’s watching porn movies starring the legendary Roberta Raconteur.

Score one for the related news algorithm, because it makes total sense for all these things to be lumped together in a kind of porn-news gumbo – which, by the way, would be a terrific name for an eatery in New Orleans.

As for “the finger,” I’m betting it got into the mix because the finger is what Juli Briskman gave Trump as he passed by in his motorcade, an act that got her fired, which put her name in the news, which in turn got her a job offer from a porn site named after a rodent.

As for Damian Green, he’s evidently something called a “first secretary,” and he got caught storing porn on a computer. I’m not sure where this guy was supposed to keep his porn, but from what I can glean, he’s now being investigated by either a cabinet or an office, or perhaps both. This is according to a woman named Amber Rudd, who is a “home secretary,” which somehow makes her Green’s boss, even though he came first.

With respect to Paul Stephenson (who everybody in England apparently is required to call “sir,” probably because he used to be a cop), I think he’s tagged in this mess because he allegedly knew the first secretary kept porn on a computer, which must be illegal in the UK now even if it doesn’t involve someone wearing a tiger suit.

I could probably go on like this all day, because every time I click through to a news story, this algorithm tells me about a dozen other related stories. I’m going to stop now, though, because at some point I need to watch a movie called Los Viajes del Viento – which must star Pablo Escobar, because Netflix really thinks I’d like it as a follow-up to binging on Narcos.

Image: Richelle Ryan via RichelleRyannline.com; Rob Gronkowski © Jeffrey Beall