Tragedy Tourism and the Business of Mourning: How America Turned Death Into Content
Tragedy has become a trend, not a reckoning. We reward attention without memory and outrage without outcomes. This is not moral awakening, it’s cognitive dissonance on autoplay.” Editorial Opinion | Don Allen We are no longer informed by tragedy, we consume it. There’s a difference. Being informed requires memory, context, and follow-through. Consumption requires only attention. Scroll. React. Move on. What we are doing now is tragedy tourism : riding waves of human suffering as if they were trending destinations, stopping just long enough to feel something before boarding the next outrage flight. Think about how quickly we forget. A white woman stabbed to death on a New York subway, brutal, senseless, terrifying. It lit up headlines, dominated feeds, and then disappeared. No sustained conversation about public safety, mental health, transit systems, or how we protect everyday people navigating shared spaces. Just a spike in attention, then silence. Christians being killed in the cont...