this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2023
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The Kensington neighborhood in Philadelphia is one of the most brutally obvious signs of America’s public health crisis. The so-called “open air drug market” in the middle of the country’s sixth most populous city is where hundreds of people use drugs, some of whom are unhoused, usually without being arrested by the police. It is a failure of our health care system, our cities, and our drug enforcement policies on public display.

For some, it’s also a content farm, where they turn other people’s misery into engagement and profit.

As I am writing this, 675 people are watching a YouTube livestream from a channel called USALIVESTREAM of a camera that is panning back and forth over the corner of Kensington Avenue and East Allegheny, where there’s a SEPTA train station that people congregate around. As is normal on YouTube, to the right of the video is a chat where viewers can talk to each other, and pay to post stickers and “super chats,” highlighted messages that cost as much as $500. The revenue generated from this chat is split between YouTube and the YouTube channel owner. YouTube and the channel owner also make money via pre-roll ads viewers have to watch before the video starts. It is a live version of a growing trend, mostly on YouTube and TikTok, where people make videos of people in distress, specifically in Kensington.

The dire situation at Kensington is such that the live feed is always capturing multiple people who are clearly in distress, slumped over while they’re standing, asleep in camping chairs, or using drugs. None appear to be aware they are being filmed and exploited as a form of entertainment.

read more: https://www.404media.co/youtube-is-monetizing-the-suffering-of-an-open-air-drug-market/

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[–] [email protected] 107 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Someone making money off this is MAYBE fourth or fifth down the line of issues with the entire situation. It's a slap in the face for humanity that our focus is more about the people filming and hosting it. What a world.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Nothing is ever a problem until there's an accessible way to make money from it.

[–] [email protected] 67 points 1 year ago (15 children)

usually without being arrested by the police

That's the good part, though. Problematic drug use is a health problem and should be treated as such rather than a criminal and moral one.

And that's not even mentioning what often happens when cops interact with members of any marginalized group..

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Finally someone is noticing this.

I report this garbage every time it gets recommended to me on YT, which is way too often. These are real human beings going through the most difficult and humiliating experiences of their lives.

One thing that's always overlooked about homelessness is the complete, total, utter lack of any privacy whatsoever. It seems obvious when you say it out loud, but no one seems to acknowledge it. Imagine every bad day you have, you have an audience. When you wake up in the morning after a shit night of sleep, everyone gets to walk by you, judge you, and gawk at how shitty you look. I'm sure not everyone in these videos is homeless (likely fewer than people would automatically assume), but probably a significant enough number.

The fact that there is anyone out there who believes treating people like they're in a zoo and then profiting off of their suffering for "entertainment" is an actual, unfeeling psychopath.

The worst part is that there are a bunch of channels like this and even more videos. They're not limited to addiction but exploit any marginalized people they can. I blame Vice for having constant drug/addiction content with no real message besides "watch this person shoot up for some reason. No, we're not blurring their face." Wtf.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

This is part of a larger political astroturfing campaign. There was a very comprehensive post on reddit about it when this garbage starting flooding into small subreddits. I'll see if I can find it.

Found:

https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/qdf9bp/comment/hhp5s4u/

https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/pj395z/whats_up_with_the_influx_of_videos_about_heavily/

Original credit to /u/hoyarugby on reddit

For people who are actually interested in how this developed rather than flogging a particular political horse

Kensington is a neighborhood in North Philadelphia. It's located not too far from the major highway I-95, and is also well-served by public transit via the Market-Frankford Line (commonly called the El, the elevated train above this street)

It was originally a neighborhood inhabited by Eastern European immigrants, who worked in garment factories, making things like stockings and hats - the textile industry was a key part of Philadelphia's industrial economy

The textile industry was one of the earliest hit with deindustrialization - factories moved to the cheaper and non-unionized American South, and then overseas, and Kensington was hit very hard by this de-industrialization. White Flight wasn't as bad here as in many other cities - Port Richmond, a neighborhood right next to this, is still largely white working class - but much of the white population fled and were replaced by Black migrants from the Jim Crow south, as well as hispanic immigrants

By the 60s the area had a large number of abandoned buildings, and the drug problem began then. First heroin in the 60s, then meth in the 70s, then crack and cocaine in the 80s and 90s. The neighborhood became a bit of a drug "emporium" because of its location - it's right near major highways and train routes, so it was a common place for people from outside of Philadelphia itself to go buy drugs. And all of the abandoned buildings created ideal places for people to squat in and do drugs

But though the area was awash in drugs and drug addicts, the abandoned buildings paradoxically helped keep the problems less visible. Large drug/homeless camps were established in abandoned lots and other marginal space - drug addicts and the homeless congregated there

The current situation in Kensington is caused by two things - fentanyl and cleanup efforts

I probably don't need to elaborate too much here, but the opioid epidemic and the influx of cheap fentanyl from China has turned the existing drug issue into an epidemic. Kensington is the place where you can get the most potent heroin on the east coast, for the cheapest price. It's a place that draws in drug addicts, keeps them ensnared, and kills them via overdoses. And it's the most potent of its kind in the country

Paradoxically, cleanup efforts pushed the problem from being somewhat invisible to being out in the open. In general, both the City of Philadelphia, and real estate money, have made an effort to buy up and restore/rebuild many buildings in the area. Kensington has excellent transit access to Center City, and is very close to the hottest real estate market in the city, the neighborhoods of Fishtown and Northern Liberties. Many of the buildings and abandoned lots that served as drug squats and homeless camps were bought up and torn down or restored, with the hopes that in a few years, Kensington will be the next hot real estate market in the city

The proximate problem that led to the current crisis was the clearing of a number of homeless camps, particularly the biggest one in the city, El Campamento which was established in the CSX railroad cut to the West of Kensington. After mounting complaints from neighbors and community leaders, CSX and the city finally cleared out the homeless camp. They were able to get some people housed and/or in treatment, but many addicts refused treatment/housing, and the drug problem will always create more homeless addicts. But now these homeless addicts didn't have an established camp to go to, so instead they just started living close to the drugs - right under the El on Kensington Ave, which is what you're seeing in this video. Basically, cleanup efforts pushed the homeless addicts out of camps where they were mostly out of sight, and into streets where they were very visible

The problem is really bad, as you can see, but there's no obvious thing for the city to do. A charity tried to set up a safe injection site nearby, but both the Trump administration and locals blocked it from being established. The city's homeless infrastructure isn't really equipped to handle the numbers of people here - and even if it had the money, most of the homeless are addicts and will refuse to live in homeless housing that requires sobriety. Kensington is going to remain a convenient place to buy drugs no matter what thanks to its great transit links. And the opioid epidemic will continue to produce new addicts that will be ensnared by places like Kensington

Some articles:

https://www.inquirer.com/philly/news/kensington-opioid-crisis-history-philly-heroin-20180123.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/10/magazine/kensington-heroin-opioid-philadelphia.html

https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/citizen-of-the-week-charito-morales/

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago

Here in Germany there is a television station that likes to produce similar trash formats. Whole seasons show people on the streets struggling with addiction and the problems of homelessness.

Even though I think it's important that we don't forget this part of society, it always had a strange aftertaste to me. What is described here sounds like the next stage in this display of human tragedy for the purpose of entertainment.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How is this YouTube's fault. The person who set up the stream is the one picking the content YouTube don't officially know anything about it.

There's many reasons to go after YouTube, but this isn't one of them, this is stupid. What idiot wrote this, and do they not understand how the internet works?

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Exposure brings attention, attention brings solution. To be ignored is to never be fixed

[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 year ago (7 children)

People don’t have a problem with the exposure, the have a problem with someone making money off it.

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Even though I agree with you that you shouldn't look away, there are two things that bother me:

If I understand correctly, this is completely unmoderated. This means it is up to the viewer how they interpret what they see.

In addition, the income should be made available to solve the problem. But it seems like someone is just putting it in their pocket.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

I am sure the problem will magically fix itself when we switch the cameras off.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Who gives a fuck about the people suffering on the street; The real travesty here is that someone is getting paid for their work in reporting it!

What an absolute stupid ass take...

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

I thought its purpose was anti-usa propaganda rather than profit. Now I see it can serve both purposes.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The $500 donations must be money laundering. I can't see a normal user on YouTube donating to a unmanned livestream and definitely not that amount of money.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Ever watch a vtuber stream? There's apparently people out there with cash to just burn.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Vtubers do things. They talk to the audience, play games, draw, cook and a bunch of other things. A lot of it is para-social which explains why some people donate a lot. This is a generic livestream of a street.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Okay, maybe there are thousands of people out there who just like watching Vtube streams, with cash to burn, in this day and age. Or, maybe someone's using livestream donations to launder money.

Does either one make more sense? I think both are true, and the latter is far more probable.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Was in a WoW guild with a dude obsessed with a vtuber.

Nerdy professions make lots of money for dudes who don't get out a lot.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I think it's just the journalist being silly, there is a tier on YouTube for a $500 donation because that's part of the YouTube system but has anyone ever used it for this stream? Incredibly doubtful.

I imagine like most webcam streams it makes very little money.

Edit - I've watched some and looked through the vods, no adverts so it's probably not monetized - likely due to showing drug use, also no one has donated in any of the sections I've looked at.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Google, destroyer of the human pysche.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I thought that was Meta.

Shit, guess it can be both.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (4 children)

None appear to be aware they are being filmed and exploited as a form of entertainment.

So someone is making money off of these people's darkest moments and the comments here so fsr just breeze right fucking past that.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Maybe instead of censoring the internet more we can get the people in these situations some help?

No? We're gonna ignore it and force you to ignore it as well?

Okay then...

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I can't believe people actually are in favor of censorship, it just blows my mind. I'm an addict myself and I believe in showing the world the problems with drugs and the negative effects drugs do to your neighborhood and country.

I've been clean from drugs for over a decade, and shame is a good thing IMHO

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It’s good to bring exposure to these types of issues, even if the only way to do that is through a commercial platform. There’s nothing wrong with monetizing this.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

There's nothing wrong with monetizing the filming of vulnerable people without their consent?

Okay

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

And not even giving them a cut of the profits or helping them in any tangible way? Sure, sure, nothing wrong with that. If they didn't want to be filmed, they should have stayed home...oh, right.

Sometimes I think that instead of antacid's, I'm taking crazy pills.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

That does sound like a fascinating stream

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