Why “filthmonger” is a great word
FILTHMONGER — [Noun] A person who purveys or promotes obscene, indecent, or morally corrupt material. From the Middle English 'filth' (from Old English fȳlþu, meaning 'foulness, dirt') combined with 'monger' (from Old English mangere, meaning 'merchant, trader'). Unlike a pornographer, who trades in the sexually explicit, or a muckraker, who exposes scandal for reform, the filthmonger traffics in a broader, more viscous currency of moral putrescence. It is the grubby hand selling soiled pamphlets from a trenchcoat, the grainy broadcaster whose signal hums with conspiracy, the digital curator whose archive is organized depravity—a merchant whose commerce is in the deliberate soiling of the mind, proving decay, too, can be a packaged commodity.