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For family and friends it tends to be because it hurts on an emotional level to see one's loved one self-injure, the self-injurer's wounds are a physical sign of their inner turmoil, whether overall or at the moment they self-injured. It's also visceral.

I'm both a self-injurer and a daughter of a former self-injurer. It's not easy on either side of the fence. When my father and I first talked after he found out I self-injured he punched himself in the face. Startling and rather frightening even though he had self-injured prior to that and I myself had self-injured by that point. 

Self-injury, whether or not we want to believe it, does affect the people who care for us. Unless one is a hermit it's hard to have everybody approve or turn a blind eye. The funny thing is, I've heard more than one self-injurer become upset when people ignore it. I definitely  don't think it's because they want people fawning over it but complete lack of acknowledgement that one is hurting or in need of a friendly ear is painful in a different way to the sometimes hysterical responses to acts of self-injury that many self-injurers dread.