Eyes on Poverty Porn

Over the last few years I have noticed a pattern in the various programming that highlights want I think is one of the most pressing issues we are facing in the coming years - debt. While a decade ago, media was a haven for "Success Porn", where people to post their highlights in life with tropical holidays, new cars, fancy meals, latest tech purchases and a lot of bikinis, and a lot of "Real (mostly plastic) Housewives" of blah blah blah... the narrative has quickly changed, with a lot more focus put on poverty.

This is natural really, since the people who tend to watch a large amount of (especially free to air) TV are going to be those who don't necessarily have a lot else going on in their lives. That is just a generalization, but I see at least through the people I encounter, a pretty clear division in how different groups use their spare time.

I haven't started watching it yet, but I believe that the Korean show "Squid Game" is one of these kinds of poverty porn shows. It isn't new of course, "The Running Man" was released back in 1987 and was somewhat along the same lines - Battle your way out of debt, or die.

In my opinion, this recent shift isn't to shine a light on how hard some people are doing it, it is about normalizing a cultural narrative that poverty is something that we should accept as part of our lives. It is making victims of the poor (they may be at times) in a way that they have no agency over their lives - it is all external influence. This is great for the people who are suffering in life, as they can relate, and in so doing, have an excuse.

The repetition of this messaging combined with Buy Now Pay Later (BNPLs) service spamming through the media, makes "getting into debt" just something the average person does. However, on the flip side, for those who are rightly scared of falling into debt, there is an inverse message pushing things like topping up retirement funds, getting private healthcare and additional insurance.

Between these two points, there is a polarization process, but each seems to point toward increased consumption that doesn't necessarily generate much, if any return on expenditure. Essentially, while the poverty porn is there to evoke an emotional response to either say "what does a little more debt matter" or, "I have to save more money", there isn't a great deal of encouragement to actually invest to earn.

I do think however that this is also changing, as while most people haven't delved in yet, crypto has been building a narrative of open discussion around personal finance and economy, raising questions of whether there is a better way to either get out of debt, build wealth or protect oneself from what is a failing economy. Because the mass media are aiming for clicks, they are of course going to focus on the FOMO and FUD aspects of it at this point, but slowly, there will likely be more exposure on alternative investment practices, as more people will start clicking on the headlines.

Like it or not, many of the people in crypto are probably not the most financially successful at the local level, which is why they looked for alternative means for income in the first place. Yes, there are other reasons and there are plenty of people who were doing financially well beforehand too, but if Hive is anything to go by, a lot of people are struggling to make ends meet.

This is only going to increase in coming years, as the mechanics of the current global economy continues to drive more wealth into fewer hands, increasing the peak of the normal distribution with very steep sides into poverty, but skewing the mass of wealth into only a sliver of the population. This means that more people are going to be looking for additional incomes to supplement what they get (either from work or social security) in order to balance their home economy and get the debt collectors at bay.

This is going to shine a light on crypto projects that offer earning, especially those that have low to no upfront investment and offer earning on activity and time spent. This is one of the reasons that crypto gaming is going to be huge, as well as content creation and all kinds of consumptive content that offers a return.

But, what is interesting in regards to the polarization I mentioned above, is that while those who have very little will be able to get a foot in the door and earn their return, those who have growing fears and less clear channels to secure their wealth, are also going to be looking at crypto as an option, including gaming and investment into the infrastructure that supports the content development and consumption activities.

This unites both sides of the wealth aisle, rather than the current process of continued "divide and conquer" tactics that are being used as control mechanisms on society. As the more wealth starts to develop between the more direct relationship of supply-demand in a largely transparent and verifiable environment, even more questions on the current (legacy) economy are going to be raised and more holes are going to be breached. It ends up being a death from 7 billion consumer cuts. It is no wonder that the governments are worried when there are for so many to start trickling money into a shadow economy, with that small stream potentially expanding to a flood.

I know that there are many here who are or have been living in relative poverty for a long time and I really hope that they find their way out of it. But in my experience, the "way out" isn't through feelings of victimhood and identifying with all of the excuses as to why we are where we are. Rather, it is through intentional and consistent activity to change behaviors and eventually our outcomes.

We don't live in a personally ideal world where whatever we enjoy doing is highly rewarded, so sometimes at least, it is necessary to do a bit of what we don't enjoy, while we build the skills and resources to do more of what we do.

You might like to sit in front of the screen and consume entertainment content to your hearts desire, but just remember -

Watching porn isn't the same as getting laid.

Taraz [ Gen1: Hive ]