Thanaleisure and the super-rich: the case of the Titan submersible disaster

This commentary reflects on the Titan submersible disaster as a case study of the thanatic leisure habits of the super-rich. Previous analyses of elite consumption have explored their tendency to seek out exclusivity and luxury, and to monopolise space (Thurlow and Jaworski 2012; Featherstone 2014; Atkinson 2021). Drawing on literature from the fields of thanatourism and dark leisure, the commentary theorises how deep sea submersible tourism offers adjacency to death and suffering as a means to pursue mythical masculine desires, confront artificial frontiers and hardships, and assert status. It concludes with a discussion of how the wastefulness, pollution and redemption struggles that characterise what is here defined as thanaleisure add to our understanding of thanacapitalism (Korstanje 2016). That is, as an economic system that not only commodifies death and suffering, but justifies its own existence through promoting the hypermobility of the few at the expense of the majority.