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Disaster Porn
March 17th, 2006Hugh MacLeod on Business Porn
Business Porn is just like Ordinary Porn or Real Estate Porn, except instead of it being about the women we wished we could sleep with, or the houses we wish we owned, it’s about all those cool, lucrative, exciting jobs and businesses that we wish we had, instead of the normal, tedious, schleppy crap most of us end up doing to pay the bills.
How many times have you seen a reporter say, “Shirley Tibedeaux, you’ve lost your home and you now have no health insurance. How do you feel?”
[response]
“There you have it, Jim. Now back to you.”
The term disaster porn coined by my friend Christian Roselund to describe Katrina journalism.
Like Hugh’s concept, except that it appeals to us in a way that is perfectly purient.
Rather than helping victims or understanding the complexity, we’re invited to share their emotions, from the comfort of our homes, feel their pain, and having done our part stay tuned for the sports roundup.
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Comments 
Disaster porn has been around long before Katrina, not just the concept but the actual term.
First, sorry that you’re comment took a month to moderate. I had a lot of spam comments blocking my view. I went through them meticulously and found a few non-spam comments that never made it.
In my little world Christian coined it, but I’m not surprised that he didn’t really. It’s pretty obvious to someone watching the media report your dire circumstance that there is a prurient interest. Until you’re in the situation, it’s hard to see.