POVERTY PORN AND THE INFLUENCER ECONOMY: EXPLOITATION IN HIGH DEFINITION

Welcome to the Algorithm’s Darkest Side

AI can easily replicate the poverty porn clickbait mechanic of the typical MrBeast-style thumbnail — wide-eyed foreigner, “dangerous” location, locals reduced to backdrop. The exploitative formula writes itself.

TL;DR

A new wave of influencer content is turning human suffering into entertainment. Under the guise of adventure or humanitarianism, creators exploit impoverished regions for clicks, views, and profit. This isn’t just unethical—it’s emblematic of social media’s moral collapse.

Poverty = Profit

In one video, a YouTuber wanders the backstreets of Port-au-Prince, wide-eyed and narrating every pothole as if discovering Atlantis. In another, a camera pans across the makeshift homes of the favelas in Rio de Janeiro as the creator muses on “how happy these people seem despite having nothing.” The thumbnails feature children smiling shyly, soldiers with rifles, and the YouTuber framed heroically in the middle.

These aren’t journalists. They’re not aid workers. They’re influencers—adventurers in the age of digital attention capitalism. And they are the front line of a disturbing genre: poverty porn for profit.

Defining Poverty Porn: From Charity to Clickbait

Originally, the term “poverty porn” described exploitative charity advertisements—think the 1980s Live Aid-era commercials featuring starving African children with flies in their eyes, presented as voiceless victims to stimulate donations. Critiques argued these campaigns dehumanized their subjects and presented suffering without context or agency.

Fast forward to 2025, and the genre has mutated. It is no longer NGOs deploying poverty to evoke pity—it’s YouTubers and TikTokers using it to build brands.

Today’s poverty porn is DIY, hand-held, and framed through first-person vlogging. The central character isn’t the person in poverty. It’s the creator—usually white, often Western, almost always male—navigating “scary,” “exotic,” or “lawless” places. It’s “humanitarianism” rebranded as hustle.

Case Studies: Influencers at the Edge

Bald and Bankrupt (Benjamin Rich)

Benjamin Rich, known online as Bald and Bankrupt, rose to fame documenting raw, unfiltered solo travels across post-Soviet states, India, Latin America, and beyond. His aesthetic is handheld, unscripted, and deliberately rough-edged — projecting an image of a roguish, truth-telling wanderer. But behind the self-deprecating charm and budget hotel jokes lies one of the most controversial figures in the YouTube travel world.

In videos like “Solo In India's Biggest Slum | Dharavi Mumbai”, Rich walks through one of the world’s most densely populated areas with a mix of curiosity and swagger. Locals are filmed mid-interaction, sometimes without clear consent, often reduced to smiling background characters in the unfolding spectacle of the foreigner abroad. While he engages in light banter and avoids overt cruelty, the camera — and narrative — remain fixed on his experience. What’s missing is context: Dharavi is a place of immense economic complexity, community resilience, and political neglect. That rarely enters the frame.

Yet this content isn’t confined to far-off slums. In recent years, Rich has turned his lens toward Britain’s “worst” towns, producing videos with bleak thumbnails and commentary on post-industrial decay, social collapse, and hopelessness — delivered with undisguised contempt. The tone has increasingly aligned with a reactionary, anti-UK worldview that some argue mirrors the Russian propaganda narrative of a decaying West.

That’s not just coincidence. In 2022, Rich was detained by Russian authorities while exploring a restricted area near a Baikonur cosmodrome. Though later released, the incident raised eyebrows. Some observers questioned how he was able to continue producing content in Russia shortly after — a country known for silencing critical or independent voices. While there’s no hard evidence of a deal, the optics alone are enough to fuel speculation.

Compounding this, Rich’s online persona has drawn criticism for alleged misogyny, both in comments and reported behaviour. Female viewers and former fans have accused him of objectifying women in his videos and thumbnails, while ignoring deeper gender dynamics in the cultures he explores. Like many in this genre, there’s a recurring pattern: young, often vulnerable women are used for “humanising” moments — quick laughs, harmless flirting — but never given narrative depth.

In sum, Bald and Bankrupt is not just a travel vlogger. He’s emblematic of the genre’s most troubling evolution — where poverty, decay, and “realness” become brands, and where geopolitical narratives, gender dynamics, and digital spectacle blur into something far more complex than travel.

Kurt Katz

Kurt Caz’s channel is arguably the most extreme example of algorithmically engineered poverty tourism. His content often places him in “danger zones” like Medellín, South Africa, or Bangladeshi slums. Titles include “Inside South Africa's Most Dangerous Hood, The Cape Flats", “Nicaraguan Girl takes me for a Wild Ride!”, and “Solo in Colombia's Most Dangerous City!.”

His thumbnails follow a formula: Caz looking alarmed or smirking, juxtaposed against images of poverty, armed locals, or rundown environments. The narrative is always framed from his perspective—how brave he is, how dangerous the place is, how lucky he was to escape. Locals are seldom named or contextualized beyond their use as visual cues of threat or sympathy.

Kurt’s videos draw millions of views. He monetizes through YouTube ads, brand deals, and a Patreon where fans fund future “adventures.” The more risky the location, the higher the reward. The emotional payload of the content is always filtered through the Western gaze—a digital coloniser’s lens dressed up as curiosity.

The Culture War Comes Along for the Ride

There’s also a deeper, more insidious pattern emerging in the genre’s most prolific male creators: their content rarely exists in isolation from broader ideological posturing. Many of these influencers—Kurt Caz included—are not just poverty tourists but participants in the global culture war. Their channels often exude an anti-woke, anti-establishment, and reactionary tone, subtly or overtly mocking political correctness, feminism, or social justice discourse.

In many thumbnails, scantily clad women are used as visual bait—smiling locals framed suggestively next to the male host, reduced to props in a fantasy of exoticism and conquest. These aren’t just accidental inclusions. They reflect a hyper-masculine, often misogynistic worldview where local women are part of the spoils of the “adventure.” Comments sections cheer this on, filled with objectifying praise or xenophobic derision.

The genre, then, isn’t just about danger or poverty—it’s also about dominance: of narrative, of gender, of ideology. These creators present themselves as truth-telling rebels against the “woke West,” using slums and suffering as the stage for a kind of digital machismo. It’s not just poverty that gets commodified—but also patriarchy and posturing.

The Ethics of the Gaze: Consent, Narrative, and Control

What makes this genre so troubling isn’t just what’s shown—but what’s left out.

• Consent is murky at best. Do people in slums, refugee camps, or collapsed states truly consent to being filmed for a global audience? Or are they simply too polite—or powerless—to say no?

• Narrative control is wholly external. The influencer dictates the story, the framing, the music, the captions. Locals are rarely named or followed up with. They become backdrops, not characters.

• Dignity is the casualty. In search of emotional payoff or drama, these creators show crumbling buildings, barefoot children, or chaotic markets—but rarely highlight resilience, community strength, or local knowledge.

This is not storytelling. This is voyeurism with a gimbal.

A Counterpoint: Yes Theory and the Possibility of Ethical Storytelling

While much of the poverty tourism genre thrives on adrenaline, exoticism, and fear-mongering, not all travel content creators follow that path. A good example is Yes Theory’s video “100 Hours in Baghdad”, which resists the typical poverty porn tropes in several meaningful ways.

Instead of reducing Baghdad to a war zone or branding it “the most dangerous city in the world,” the narrative opens with historical reverence. The video explores Baghdad’s legacy as the intellectual heart of the Islamic Golden Age and the birthplace of Mesopotamian civilisation. It contextualises the violence the city has experienced — from Mongol invasions to the 2003 U.S. occupation — without sensationalising it.

Crucially, the team partners with a local woman as their guide, whose perspective anchors the journey. Her personal stories — fleeing war three times, enduring a U.S. military raid as a child, and working to change Western perceptions of Iraq — lend the film emotional depth and authenticity. She’s not background; she’s central.

Even monetisation is handled with care. Yes Theory promotes their Seek Discomfort clothing line, but commits a portion of the profits to education initiatives in Iraq via Save the Children. That’s not absolution, but it’s accountability — a rare thing in the influencer economy.

The video still performs well by algorithmic standards — visually rich, tightly edited, emotionally charged — but it does so without exploiting its subjects. Instead of fear, it invites curiosity. Instead of othering, it fosters connection. And that, ultimately, is what ethical storytelling looks like on YouTube.

Why Audiences Watch — and Why That Matters

So why is poverty porn so popular?

1. Digital Voyeurism

In a hyper-sanitized, over-regulated digital life, these videos offer a dose of visceral discomfort. Viewers are allowed to peek into “dangerous” worlds without risk, guilt, or real connection. It’s the same mechanism that fuels true crime obsessions—distance as safety, danger as titillation.

2. Trauma as Entertainment

Many users are numb to real-world suffering due to constant exposure. Influencer vlogs repackage trauma as experience, turning pain into an arc that ends with a like, a comment, and an affiliate code.

3. Exoticism and Virtual Heroism

For Western audiences, these creators become avatars of courage. “Look at him going to North Korea! To Afghanistan! To the favelas!” The viewer, by proxy, feels more worldly and informed, even though the knowledge gained is shallow and performative.

The Algorithm’s Role: Platform Incentives and Moral Bankruptcy

As I argued in Social Media and the Seven Deadly Sins, platforms reward spectacle, not ethics. The more dangerous, outrageous, or emotionally charged a video is, the more likely it is to be recommended.

There are no checks, no review boards, no required context. YouTube, TikTok, and Meta monetise this content the same way they monetize makeup tutorials or cooking shows. Suffering becomes just another vertical.

Creators know this. And platforms benefit from their recklessness. A symbiosis of exploitation.

Toward Ethical Storytelling

We need to ask hard questions:

• Can storytelling from the Global South exist without exploitation?

• Are there creators from within these communities who deserve the spotlight—and support?

• What does ethical digital journalism look like in the age of influencer economies?

We already know the answer to the last question. It looks like paying locals, sharing revenue, collaborating with journalists, acknowledging privilege, and letting go of the saviour complex.

Final Reflection: What You Watch Shapes What’s Made

Poverty porn isn't just a creator problem. It’s a consumer problem. We enable it.

Every view is an incentive. Every comment is a signal. Every share is a vote for what kind of world we want to watch—and what kind of world we want to live in.

So the next time an influencer grins through a war zone, or narrates the “madness” of life in a slum from behind an iPhone, ask: Who’s profiting here? Who’s being reduced to a thumbnail?

We don’t need more explorers. We need more accountability.