Smutne i piękne. Analiza fotografii z serwisu Flickr przedstawiających osoby bezdomne w USA, dyskusji wokół ich fotografowania oraz refleksja nad teoriami Zygmunta Baumana i Jeremy’ego Rifkina na temat empatii
Sad and Beautiful. Analysis of Photographs on Flickr Portraying the Homeless in the USA, Discussion Regarding the Taking of their Photographs, and Reflection on the Theories of Zygmunt Bauman and Jeremy Rifkin on the Subject of Empathy

Summary/Abstract: The article contains an analysis of selected photographs showing people of the streets in the USA published on Flickr in the years 2006-2014, along with accompanying remarks, revealing the artists’ attitude towards the homeless as well as ways of photographing them and the legitimacy of doing so. Photographs of and comments by inhabitants of the USA were selected for the analysis. The article discusses the methods observed in the photographing of homeless people, and the main topics of discussion unfolding beneath the photographs, such as ethics and aesthetics, the authenticity of the figure or scene portrayed, and the artist’s expression.The purpose of analysing these testimonials of homelessness in the USA is to answer the question regarding whether the ways of presenting homeless persons on Flickr, in the photographs and the comments published, diverge from the ways of presenting people of the streets typical of the mainstream discourse in American consumer society (Bauman) prior to the economic crisis in 2007 - frequently objectifying or classifying them as cultural Others; are homeless people in the USA on Flickr presented and treated by the USA’s photographers subjectively? On the one hand Flickr as a social medium provides an opportunity for those taking photographs to present a new view of the homeless, as an alternative to ways in which they are portrayed in professional American media. Yet on the other hand, the site’s purpose - allowing photographers to present their own works - means that the homeless are, for them, an object of their creativity, and an element of their self-creation.Flickr’s photographs of homelessness in the USA and their accompanying comments constitute a kind of gauge of the level of empathy among the site’s users, including those participating in American culture. As such the analysis of these photographs and their comments constitutes the basis for an attempt at verifying contradictory theories of contemporary western culture: Bauman’s diagnosis, which in the book Work, Consumerism and the New Poor (2006[1998]) indicates dwindling social solidarity and indifference towards the poor in consumer societies, and Jeremy Rifkin’s idea published in Empathic Civilization (2009), that social bonds are currently becoming steadily stronger, while humankind is becoming increasingly empathic.

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