I believe it's a form of intellectual laziness who's roots lie in self-consciousness. Meaning, that some people project internal feelings of inadequacy onto the external world.
And I understand the temptation there - if I'm not competing well at a game, the immediate tendency is to blame the game (I stink at golf -> golf is stupid).
One of the reasons doom porn is so popular because it's the ultimate "out": I don't need to focus on myself and self-improvement, which is hard, when we're all going to die anyway.