In the introduction we learned what social porn is and how gossiping – arguably an innate desire of humans – was the precursor and enabler for modern social porn.
But where did it evolve after gossiping?
Obviously, we are dismissing the whole time frame between prehistoric humans and the emergence of media since there isn't as much to explore without the modern footprints.
However, that doesn't mean there was no social porn before; Those, especially wealthy in high societies, who could sit on their asses and drink bunch of tea to pass the time, loved to gossip on their lousy husbands, loved ones, or someone else's secret affair.
For the popular folk on the other hand, who had to work their asses of: well, they had religion which they righteously practiced
and defended. It is indeed little far fetched to compare religion with social porn, but think of it as a distant cousin, the closest thing to the "real stuff" some people had access to.
An analogy
Dirty thoughts aren't really pornography, but they both elicit sexual arousal, in different ways.
Now, religion brings pleasure through imagination – like dirty thoughts – while being related to social porn as a social phenomena. So, the relationship between religion and social porn is similar with how dirty thoughts compare to Pornhub-porn.
It (religion) was like the substitute for the hard core material that most people couldn't get their hands on. Didn't Marx say something along the lines of "religion is opium for the folk"?
Tabloid Journalism
Tabloid journalism is a style of journalism that emphasizes sensational crime stories, gossip columns about celebrities and sports stars, extreme political views from one perspective, junk food news and astrology.
Bull's eye!
Tabloid journalism hits right into the gold vein with its preferred content: gossip columns, sensational crime stories, extreme political views.
According to my own initial definition, social porn only included "explicit portrayal about other [individual] people's lives", but I had completely forgotten the collective: religion and politics, which don't necessarily fall under 'individual' category, even though being a powerful tool to thrust more juice to the gossip stories.
On the same vein, being part of a religion or political party isn't exactly porn – "portrayal", which means it is laid out and easily consumable, a product designed to bring pleasure. Being part of politics, if used to describe with further sexual analogies, would be like being in an orgy where you are an active participant yourself (although politics and religion can get way nastier than orgies). But portrayal of a political debate could be considered as social porn, especially if used in the context of downgrading political figure(s), furthermore used to tickle our emotional arousal.
Material designed to wake up our inner "social justice warriors" is especially dangerous because it can lead to a complete distorted view of the world and either of the sexes (mostly men), potentially leading to irrational behavior. SJWs might just simply be addicted to the 'collective' social porn sub-genre, trapped in their own habitual chains of addiction. Though you should consult your doctor first, instead of listening me, for a proper diagnosis.
Anyhow, the history, which I was supposed to tell you: Well, the News of the World was apparently the first tabloid. That's pretty much it because I can't find more personally interesting stuff to dig into. First there were tabloids which kept their topics bit more general, unlike the gossip magazines that became increasingly popular at some point, then Internet happened and as of now we have a celebrity culture that's doing better than ever before. I think that's pretty much all you need to know.
Sorry, I'm a bad historian.