It wasn't a new novelty though - besides PoW there was (and still is) plenty of classist and snobbish people-watching communities and their content, even on reddit - and it isn't anything new: "white trash" is an ancient term that's still in-use, and I don't think many people watch COPS for mundane police encounters.

Oh, for sure. I wonder where we can draw the line. I think that a flavor that is shared by Vice, COPS, PoW and its ilk is a gonzo journalism quality. And you know, now that you mention the classist, snobbish qualities to it, I think there's a key element I was missing in my original point: voyeurism. There's some really specific stuff going on in the way that a class observes the "trashy" mannerisms of a underclass, and it's necessarily veiled because discussion of it is deemed crude, base, or otherwise unbecoming of that class. Would you agree that there's an element of voyeurism there?

> Would you agree that there's an element of voyeurism there?

Definitely.