Chernobyl and the rise of disaster selfies
Social media influencers under fire over photos taken at site of the nuclear tragedy
Tourists flocking to Chernobyl in the wake of the hit TV show of the same name have come under fire for taking “inappropriate” photos at the former nuclear power plant.
The premiere in May of HBO miniseries Chernobyl, about the deadliest nuclear disaster in human history, triggered a surge in tourism in Pripyat, the city in modern-day northern Ukraine that once housed the families of thousands of men and women who worked at the nearby nuclear site. The city was evacuated following the catastrophic meltdown, on 26 April 1986, and has remained unoccupied since.
The Guardian reports that the number of visitors to the nuclear disaster site last month was up by 40% year-on-year. But while many tourists are simply there to pay their respects, social media influencers are using renewed interest in the disaster to stage “irreverent or provocative” glamour shots for their Instagram accounts, says The Independent.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Such images include “one showing a woman with a hazmat suit undone to reveal a G-string”, with thousands more influencers posting similar photos under the hashtag #Chernobyl, adds The Guardian.
So-called “disaster selfies” have become ubiquitous in the ever-growing industry of disaster tourism, in which travellers head to the scene of terrible catastrophes from history.
In 2015, a large group of people were reported to have taken a selfie beside the wreckage of the Dharahara Tower, an iconic landmark that was reduced to rubble in the Nepal earthquake that killed almost 9,000 people. And last year, a selfie showing a group of smiling women posing in front of the wreckage from the Sunda Strait tsunami went viral on social media.
To some commentators, such images are an insult to the victims of the disasters, but others shrug off such behaviour as “just human nature”.
Why are they frowned upon?
Posing for selfies after horrendous events has “become a regular activity in our daily life”, says Rizqy Amelia Zein, assistant lecturer in social and personality psychology at the Universitas Airlangga in Indonesia. Indeed, it “almost as regular as people stopping by to see the aftermath of a traffic accident”, she writes in an article on The Conversation.
Zein suggests this behaviour is “a serious moral issue, because it is even worse than being a bystander”, and is a “symptom of social pathology, which is the loss of empathy”.
Yasmin Ibrahim, a media expert from Queen Mary University of London, has also written an article on the practice, which she views as a “disconcerting element of self-voyeurism in the post-disaster space”.
BuzzFeed News pinpoints 2014 as the year in which the growing trend really entered the public consciousness, after “one girl’s selfie at the Auschwitz concentration camp sparked outrage up and down the internet”.
“In the years since though, the lesson seems to have faded,” says the news site, which notes that only recently, Auschwitz “had to tweet a reminder to people to maybe not pose for cute pics on the railroads that carried hundreds of thousands of people to their deaths”.
Now, the issue has been pushed back into the spotlight by the growing trend for snapping pictures at Chernobyl.
Sergii Ivanchuk, director of SoloEast Travel, told The Washington Post this week that the practice was “disgusting and humiliating” to those who still work in the clean-up of Chernobyl, and to those who were never allowed to return to their homes at the site.
“The 20th century is full of dark events and suffering,” he said. “And just like Auschwitz or Hiroshima, Chernobyl is one of them.”
Are these images entirely negative?
Quartz thinks not. “Rubbernecking at disasters is an ancient sport,” the news site says, pointing out that people like to “document ourselves in these places for the same reason we document ourselves at weddings and graduations; they are moments we want to remember”.
The news site argues that the acceptability of the photos depends on matters of judgement and taste, and suggests that while “Israeli kids probably should not be taking pictures of themselves cuddling or leaping for joy in front of the gas chambers”, visitors to the scene of a disaster shouldn’t be expected to “devote every second of their attention to watching in respectful horror”.
“They make small-talk, call their relatives, eat a sandwich, do stretches, go to the bathroom, laugh at jokes,” Quartz adds. “And they take selfies.”
The Jakarta Post agrees that even if they can seem a little tasteless, selfies serve a practical function. “There are people who want to prove that they have arrived somewhere by logging in, checking in [on social media] and uploading some photos,” the paper says.
“The intention is actually normal; telling others that they have visited the location.”
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Why is Tesla stumbling?
In the Spotlight More competition, confusion about the future and a giant pay package for Elon Musk
By Joel Mathis, The Week US Published
-
How Taylor Swift changed copyright negotiations in music
under the radar The success of Taylor's Version rerecordings has put new pressure on record labels
By Theara Coleman, The Week US Published
-
Job scams are increasingly common. Here's what to look out for.
The Explainer You should never pay for an application or give out your personal info before being hired
By Becca Stanek, The Week US Published
-
How the EU undermines its climate goals with animal farming subsidies
Under the radar Bloc's agricultural policy incentivises carbon-intensive animal farming over growing crops, despite aims to be carbon-neutral
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Chimpanzees are dying of human diseases
Under the radar Great apes are vulnerable to human pathogens thanks to genetic similarity, increased contact and no immunity
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Can the world really wean itself off coal?
Today's Big Question 'Record' global consumption is set to fall soon but growing demand in China and India could increase tensions
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
The microplastics hurricanes blowing across North America
Under the Radar New research confirms global pervasiveness of harmful microplastic pollution
By The Week Staff Published
-
What can Cop28 really achieve?
Today's Big Question Climate summit in UAE proves controversial as UN warns world is falling short of global warming targets
By The Week UK Published
-
A23a: why world's biggest iceberg is on the move
The Explainer The mass of ice is four times the size of New York and 'essentially' an island
By Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK Published
-
Libya floods: death toll set to rise with 10,000 reported missing
More than 6,000 people reported dead, with hundreds of bodies still washing ashore
By Arion McNicoll Published
-
Thousands feared dead in catastrophic Libya flooding
Speed Read A powerful Mediterranean storm pummeled Libya's northeast coast, wiping out entire neighborhoods
By Peter Weber Published