Justice Porn

Confirmed 82,806

Part of a series on Hacktivism / Internet Vigilantism. [View Related Entries]

About

Justice Porn is an Internet slang term that is used to describe true stories and online media depicting events in which criminals, bullies and other aggressors are thwarted, exposed or punished for their wrongdoings.

Origin

The earliest known use of the term "justice porn" was featured in an article about courtroom reality television published in Reason^[1] in January of 2009.

"Justice porn, it turns out, is a fairly reliable way to achieve that end: Find a sassy real-life jurist with an itch for the big time, throw some penny-ante miscreants at her mercy, and let the premature adjudication begin."

Spread

On July 28th, 2011, the /r/justiceporn^[2] subreddit was created by Reddit PimpMogul, which gained over 196,000 subscribers within the first two years. On May 21st, 2012, Redditor Jtl4231 submitted a video to /r/justiceporn^[4] of a man in a tiger suit defending himself against an attacker (shown below, left), receiving upwards of 4,500 up votes and 220 comments prior to being archived. On the following day, The Daily Dot^[6] published an article about the subreddit, noting that it has become one of the fastest growing communities on Reddit. On September 4th, LiveLeak user als uploaded a video titled “Justice Porn,” featuring a video of a teacher being kicked in the groin after scolding a little girl (shown below, right). Within the following nine months, the video accumulated more than 338,000 views and 1,100 comments.

On October 11th, Redditor alkalinedevin submitted a video of a male bus driver uppercutting a confrontational female passenger to the /r/justiceporn^[3] subreddit (shown below, left), where it garnered upwards of 10,600 up votes and 2,600 comments prior to being archived. On January 28th, 2013, Redditor MyLaptopIsBurningMe submitted a video of former mall security guard Darien Long using a taser gun on an aggressive mother (shown below, right), which gained over 11,700 up votes and 4,400 comments in the first four months.

On June 2nd, Urban Dictionary^[7] user jet_tripleseven submitted an entry for the term "justice boner," defining it as a "feeling of excitement" caused by witnessing revenge or justice. On the following day, it was featured as the "Urban Word of the Day."

Notable Examples

There are hundreds of videos titled "Justice Porn" or tagged under "justice" available on YouTube^[8] and LiveLeak.^[9] In addition, there are numerous YouTube playlists^[10] dedicated to aggregating such content.

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