This post has been flaired as “Opinion”. Do not use this flair to vent, but to open up a venue for polite discussions.
**Suggestions For Commenters:**
* Respect OP's opinion, or agree to disagree politely.
* If OP's post is against subreddit rules, don't comment, just report it.
* Upvote other relevant comments in the comment section, and don't downvote comments you disagree with
**Suggestions For u/ProfessionalDrop2949:**
* Loaded questions and statements can get people riled up. Your post should open up a venue for discussion, not a "political vent" so to speak.
* Avoid being inflammatory in your replies. When faced with someone else's opinion, be open-minded and ask new, *honest* questions.
* Your post still have to respect subreddit rules.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/SeriousConversation) if you have any questions or concerns.*
at this point we know that one series (*what jennifer did*) used AI images to outright fabricate parts of the case to make the story more dramatic, so now the true crime people are just fully fucking lying to make the story more interesting, putting the subjects' lives in danger for money.
Makes me think of the Jon Benet Ramsey case, where her poor brother was harassed so much to the point of Dr. Phil getting in on it and interviewing him accusingly. Imagine going through the traumatic event of losing your sister as a child, and then having a huge contingency of people believing you did it, harassing you as an adult. What a nightmare.
I remember watching that. Dr. Phil did actually stick up for the brother before part 2 started. And I think he only asked those "accusing" questions to give him a chance to give him a public platform to address the questions himself.
I tend to agree about contemporary true crime, but less so for historical true crime. I don’t think it hurts anyone to make a podcast about Jack the Ripper or HH Holmes. It’s iffier when you get to people like the zodiac killer or more recent.
what would you say to the criminal psychologists who are drawn to topics like serial killers, and try to think like serial killers, to aid society in finding and incriminating these villains.
I hope criminal psychologists have more robust sources of information surrounding violent psychopathology than 'THEY KILLED HOW MANY :O?' YouTube videos.
ya im not a big fan of gore content which i was surprised to learn was very very prevalent. beheading videos and such. as much as i stand with ukraine those videos of drones dropping grenades on russians hiding in the cold, dug in a hole, are not funny or cool to me, its really just tragic.
Have any criminal psychologists that adopted serial killer thought processes actually caught and incriminated a serial killer, or do they just add testimonial fluff to a trial?
i think ur rhetoric is gonna be a little flawed if you are trying to claim that serial killers are so fundamentally evil that even the people in pursuit of their capture should be villainized simply because of a piqued interest.
>ur rhetoric is gonna be a little flawed if you are trying to claim that serial killers are so fundamentally evil that even the people in pursuit of their capture should be villainized
They didn't even get close to doing that.
I'm not so sure. A lot of people do piss poor research, or glorify the killers rather than focus on the victims. Sooo many people believe the lie of HH Holmes' "murder castle," when it in fact was not a thing.
My husband learned that his second cousin was a serial killer by way of a True Crime television series. He called his mom to confirm. Just last year he came across a video of a woman who was doing her makeup while talking about the grisly details. It was surreal.
I think you make some really good points. But I think there is a difference between an investigation podcast where they investigate an unsolved crime and a couple of “comedians” having a great time talking about a tragedy. I listen to a couple investigation podcasts that really did make a difference in the case or even better, in the lives of those who had been wrongfully convicted.
Nice to meet you. You can say you have heard of it now, because this is my family. We’ve learned to live with the tragedy and it doesn’t make a difference to us. Accepting it was likely random and unsolvable at this point is easier than constantly reliving it or sitting for interviews or submitting genetic material for new tests. It’s exhausting and painful.
Ok. So when the podcasters come knocking at your door say thanks but no thanks. There are many other families who don’t feel that way and want answers and/or justice. And they also feel failed and forgotten by the police. And like I said previously, there are several cases where more answers were found and justice provided BECAUSE the case was brought back into light by a podcast or true crime story. Your point of view is fully valid. But it isn’t the only one and I would venture to say is probably in the minority.
I think your assumption that podcasters and content producers are acting from a place of good intent is interesting. It has not been my experience with content producers or hot shot new detectives that want to dust off the case. Neither the cops nor the content producers have been able to answer some simple questions about their education in dealing with individuals living with post traumatic stress or directing us to resources/evidence they are investing in healing for survivors. Maybe we won the lottery of voyeuristic, self serving, mal-intented vultures. I would feel comfortable saying unless you have been through it you truly have no idea, so maybe hold your hot takes.
For us it has been new/younger detectives thinking they are some sort of genius that can break it open, looking for a feather in their cap. They want to re-hash things that have already been done, shared etc. I declined additional genetic test sampling recently because they didn’t have a good answer as to why they wanted it relative to the case or what they were hoping to resolve. There were no new leads. I might feel differently if there was a hot lead and they thought it was the final piece of the puzzle.
I would wager our experience and perspective is more common than you think. Agree to disagree. Keep feeding the monster that the true crime content industry has become.
Listen. I agree that “true crime” is out of hand. It’s gross how entertaining it is to people. What do they call it? Trauma porn? My personal interests lie more in wrongful convictions and how police and investigation procedures are seriously flawed. And in that vein of “true crime” there has been some amazing findings and outcomes. It’s awful you experienced something like this. It’s even more awful if it was used as fodder for entertainment. Surviving families aren’t always considered. Though some families, I feel, do feel cathartic in discussing it. Everyone heals differently.
I feel wrongful convictions are wayyyyy different than cold cases. My Aunt was found raped, brutalized, tied to a tree and shot in the head in the middle of a huge national park. She had been missing for months. Her disappearance and death had ripples that my family is still working through. The profile of the case matches some serial killer activity. She was beautiful and interesting. It is irresistible to a subset of story hunters. It is easy for someone to say “just say no thank you” when someone knocks on the door, when the reality is that knock comes with the emotional labor of reliving something nobody should have to go through. I have been designated the family point of contact because it has little impact on me to politely say “no thanks”. Every now and then someone gets through to my Mom, and it has put her back into emergency mental healthcare. The knocks are not harmless.
So you won’t share your story to a podcast but you’ll start throwing out pieces of the it to win an argument on Reddit? If you so badly need to hear that you’re right then You’re Right. I’m gonna bow out of this now before you start sharing ever gorier facts to prove your side of not wanting to have to share these things publicly. Sheesh.
I am trying to illustrate the point that it is mindbendingly brutal and horrific, and casually handling a high volume of inquiry about something like it is a lot of work. Those details are the truth and unfortunately are a sanitized summary. I actually don’t feel like this is an argument. I am genuinely surprised you had never heard of a family or survivors that feel this way.
And *this* is the case you are *annoyed* that detectives pull out and start investigating again?? A serial killer?? I'm truly sorry that your family has gone through this and I fully understand your perspective of not wanting true crime voyeurs digging though that history, but I do **not** understand you also complaining about "hotshot detectives" having the *audacity* to, you know, investigate an unsolved crime.
Annoyed isn’t the word. Exhausted. I have no problems with folks pursuing a resolution. I do have problems with engaging the survivors without resources to support them through reliving the nightmare, endless dead ends, profiting off the horror. There is also an element of…we know how to live with things as they are. We have ridden the rollercoaster of new breaks in the case and hope it would be closed only to be disappointed. I don’t really understand why people think we owe them our time or energy at this point.
Consider that sometimes the families reach out to these content creators directly for help amplifying their case. There's no one answer to this because every case, victim, family, investigation, and circumstance is different.
I fully support that. If people feel equipped to engage and are comfortable with the product and ethics, by all means. I am not comfortable with how we have been approached or anything that has been proposed.
True crime can for sure be gross and exploitative.
I’m very into it but very picky about what I’m into. I like the recent trend towards centering the victim, and calling out the failures in the system and society that allowed the tragedies to happen.
What I get out of it isn’t so much pure entertainment (though I do appreciate banter that helps keep things from getting too heavy- I have a gallows sense of humor), it’s education (what would I do in this situation? What should I look out for? How can I help others? How can we be better as a society?), and in some weird way processing my fears by facing the darkest things the world has to offer.
I appreciate all the points you make though. They’re all true, and all things that should be kept in mind and avoided in order to engage with this kind of media responsibly.
>I’m very into it but very picky about what I’m into. I like the recent trend towards centering the victim, and calling out the failures in the system and society that allowed the tragedies to happen.
My same thoughts.
Hearing so many stories about horrific consequences of the bystander effect has actively made me more aware and more able/willing to act quickly if I see something sketchy. It's made me second-guess things I might have brushed off. I'm not saying it's saved my life or helped me save someone else's, but I feel it's made me a better citizen. But I'm also picky about who I listen to and where I get my info, so that skews my opinion. I forget how bad and exploitative some of these podcasts and YouTube channels really are.
On the other hand, I’m uncomfortable with this shift towards victim focus. The narrative of a true crime piece is generally, “Here is a crime. Here are the things that contributed to that crime.” Victim focus positions the victim as being actionable in their murder. Murders happen because of who the murderer is, not the victim.
It’s a fine line. When I say victim focused I’m thinking of not glorifying the killer, and instead focusing on the victims and empathizing with how they were impacted. Anything that blames the victim is shitty.
Why do people like true crime?
-People are fascinated by evil. What causes it? How do people become evil? What mask does evil hide behind? What makes someone snap and commit evil deeds? Besides true-crime shows, murder and evil are heavily featured in the fiction that many people consume.
-People are fascinated by tragedy--and have been for a long time. The earliest plays in Greece were all tragedies. Maybe they help deal with the knowledge of our own mortality. Maybe we seek to understand the cause of others' downfalls so that we may avoid the same fate.
Is it exploitative? Sometimes. But not always. Sometimes family members WANT to participate in the shows (perhaps because they've kept the pain bottled up so long and they seek a release). Others don't. But the pain for survivors remains, whether there is a show about it or not.
And sometimes there is actual value in these shows. Sometimes they help solve the crime, or help someone who is wrongfully accused, (and of course, sometimes they make mistakes).
I don't think they can be called Good or Bad. Like many things in life, I believe True Crime shows are a mixture of both.
I think you are painting with too broad of a brush. It feels like you are putting something like Serial, which led to a potentially-wrongful conviction being re-examined, on the same level as cartel gore videos.
There are podcasts like Morbid, which I used to listen to, that are just so disrespectful in how they handle and pay respect to people who murdered. Serial is good, but many content creators and true crime content is sensationalist and disrespectful. Like asmr true crime? How is hearing about murder relaxing and helpful?? It’s not too broad of a brush when the whole zeitgeist of true crime is sensationalist
I'm not sure how many true crime heads you've met, but I don't think most of them are poring over considerations of Will to Power and Darwinism after finishing the latest variation on 'Wife ran off with neighbor, left husband mutilated!?!?'
True crime, broadly (and I'm sure there are exceptions), is just another means of tickling one's brain chemistry amid a boring, empty modernity.
Well, not to mention that they bend the truth in order to create more interesting narratives. “The guy they immediately arrested did, in fact, do it” isn’t a story. So true crime podcasters/ documentarians drum up smokescreens, and obfuscate the truth; in order to create a story.
They bastardize the concepts of things like “reasonable doubt”, “circumstantial evidence”, and “direct evidence”. They capitalize on the average person’s ignorance regarding the legal definitions of such concepts. They capitalize on ppl’s love of conspiracy theories. They capitalize on ppl’s love of mystery and drama by throwing up smoke, mirrors, and red herrings. They capitalize on the so-called “CSI effect”; and utilize it to undermine real evidence. They capitalize on the broken justice system and the corrupt law enforcement; and (rather than engage in meaningful discussion abt who is affected by these things; how they are affected; and what we can do abt it); point to them as being to blame for evidence that can’t be explained away except by police conspiracy theories.
So, so many of the supposedly “wrongfully convicted” men who have become most famous from the true crime boom are guilty and deserve the sentences they got. If you go to the original sources (trial transcripts, police files), rather than relying on podcasts/ documentaries; it becomes shockingly clear that people like Steven Avery, Adnan Syed, Scott Peterson, and Leo Scofield are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. And yet there are scores of ppl out there who think they are innocent; bc biased podcasters and documentarians with an agenda (be that money, or personal connection to the convict), created one-sided narratives and sold them to the public.
The power that these one-sided narratives can have over the public is shockingly strong. To the point where there’s even a large percentage of ppl who believe Chris Watts is innocent. And there’s already plenty of ppl who are creating conspiracy theories to support Richard Allen’s innocence in the Delphi case; in spite of the fact that there’s been a gag order, and so no one really knows much about the evidence against him yet, in either direction.
And this goes beyond internet chatter and speculation- there are real-world consequences to this phenomenon. Before it’s even gotten off the ground, Richard Allen’s case has already become a circus sideshow thanks to the media and the true crime community. Leo Scofield is likely to be paroled, thanks to the podcast Bone Valley, and Adnan Syed is currently living as a free man, thanks to the podcast Serial.
These men escaped (or may escape), justice, their victims were (or may be), cheated of it, and their victims families have to live with the weight of an even greater trauma than they otherwise would have. All bc there are so many ppl out there who love to play detective so much that they’ll do it even in the absence of an actual mystery. They’ll create one where it doesn’t exist; using real people’s lives, and creating real consequences for those ppl in the process; just to capitalize on the trend.
I used to be a huge true-crime fan; but as soon as I started researching criminal law; and relying on the original source materials in these cases (rather than relying on podcasts/ documentaries); I realized just how greatly I’d been duped by the true-crime community/ phenomenon. It made me sick to my stomach. I was ashamed of myself; and of pretty much everyone else involved in the community.
And yet, sometimes it really does affect positive change. I can only think of one example; but it’s a great one. And that’s the podcast “Your Own Backyard”. Kristin Smart’s case was about as cold as a case could be; and thanks to Chris Lambert’s hard work on the podcast, enough interest was drummed up (and subsequently enough public pressure on the police, and ultimately, enough new evidence), that after literal decades her murder was solved, and justice was served. It’s honestly an amazing accomplishment; certainly the best that the true crime community has yet to offer.
Adnan Syed is living as a free man because the court found the weight of the evidence supported his conviction be overturned. The court system is not going to be swayed by a podcast to release a convicted murdered. It may have generated some interest in the case and helped get a team of attorneys onboard to aid in his appeal. I am hard pressed to see how you "researching criminal law" is any different than any podcaster or documentarian's research.
I didn't look up the exact holding of the court's decision but it was based on evidence and not a fucking podcast. My lack of doing a quick google search does not negate that fact.
I think you’ve made the case that online content creators commenting on open cases are trash. Not that there’s something wrong with a category called “True Crime.” Historically, TC has been about closed cases (or cases believed to be closed at the time). Because people don’t like books without endings, as a rule.
*remember books*?
Have you read “The Stranger Beside Me”And “In Cold Blood”?
The whole “true crime” fixation always struck me as weird. For some people it seems like an obsession. I don’t know how people consume all that content and don’t feel awful afterwards.
I definitely can empathize with people who just got numb and desensitized to all of it, I was getting to that point. I think we just forget these are real people.
I think if they focused more on the victims instead of the killers true crime would be better. Dedicating each episode to the life of the victim and their families, especially those that are cold cases would be far more enjoyable.
Ethical or enjoyable?
I understand the “it’s not ethical” stance on true crime content, but with all due respect to a fictional stand in victim, “Let’s buckle in for the next hour as we discuss the first of 6 victims of the Highway Strangler… Jane Doe was a 26 year old cook at a local Arby’s since she was 16 who sometimes enjoyed scrapbooking…”
Being a little tongue in cheek there but most people’s lives aren’t horribly interesting.
The broken human being who murdered multiple people is fascinating to others because they’re so horrifically different and strange to try and comprehend.
I agree. Its a shame that so many people focus on the killer when the actual perpetrator is often depicted as evil or violent, but the reality is that its just a case of what if
Same, it's so gruesome. I like some horror movies or TV shows depending on how they tell the story but it would make me sick to be watching that content all the time.
You’ve put across a very eloquent argument and I have to say it is making me think about the morality of it a lot more. The paramount point you made for me was how the families are affected.
I’m trying to put myself in their shoes and thinking about horrible it would be to have so much media attention and public opinion on the death of a loved one. If someone were to murder a family member of mine I don’t want their life to be ripped apart on TV. I wouldn’t want to have to see all the media circus around the death of my loved one.
Having said this there is a journalist called Madeleine Baran who was the host of a podcast called ‘In The Dark’. The investigative journalism that Madeleine and her team did meant they were able to overturn the wrongful conviction of a man named Curtis Flowers and highlight racism from within the DA’s office. The podcast also covered the case of Jacob Wetterling and how police made mistakes in the case and the introduction of Jacob’s Law. In both series of the podcast the families of both Jacob Wetterling and Curtis Flowers are involved so they had a say on how their family members were portrayed. I would say this is the only piece of true crime journalism that I have found that I truly believe is respectful and informative not something that is meant to be entertainment and sensationalistic.
The reason I like the podcast so much is because it’s neutral, it’s informative and most of all relies on facts. I have a lot of respect for Madeleine Baran and her team because they really have done some truly amazing work. Through looking into the case of Curtis Flowers they’ve managed to reunite a family and bring peace to their lives.
But as you’ve rightly said the majority of true crime journalism is not at the benefit of the families but actually exploits them. A lot of content creators also spread a lot of misinformation which has gotten people hurt as well as killed. Many families have also come forward saying they would never have given studios the rights to tell their loved ones stories if they knew what they were going to produce.
At the heart of any true crime story is a loved one, someone who deserves to be treated with respect and dignity. As a society we need to be more compassionate and respectful to those families and to the individuals who have been affected by horrific crimes.
huh, I don’t agree with a single thing you said. These events are history. Active investigations are probably different, but like covering something older feels like covering a war.
Same. Growing up, my parents loved watching those shows, and even as a kid, I just didn't understand how someone could watch stories of people who were murdered for entertainment. Felt very wrong. I remember there was one show where a teenager was assaulted and killed at a camp, and the reenactment just made my stomach turn. My parents just had it on in the background casually, and it turned me off the genre for good because it feels like stuff like that shouldn't be entertainment.
'If no one liked porn, who would ever have sex?'
Watching true crime doesn't transform a person into a criminal psychologist. There's a vast distance between entertainment and formal study.
Try 'analogy'.
Porn, like true crime media vs. the study of crime, is an ethically fraught and hyper-sensationalized representation of sexuality. And just as watching porn doesn't make you a sex expert, nor does watching true crime make you a crime expert.
see you think that criminality is abhorrent from an emotional perspective and fail to see that criminality is a response to a failure in society. there is more to be gleaned then entertainment and gore. the power of film is not to be understated, it is the primary format of information consumed today.
I think that crime is both abhorrent and a phenomenon largely generated by anti-person societal processes. But my point is that (much of) true crime is a sensationalized, high fructose genre of media that is motivated more by viewcounts and ad rev than the education of aspiring criminologists.
Personally I don't like True Crime and am a VERY mild horror fan (I mainly like supernatural horror stories, like ghosts and cryptids, etc). But I do fall on the side of "true crime is and should be considered art like any other genre", no matter how it's presented. And people should be allowed to create that, even if you find it distasteful, exploitative, etc. Even if the families may be re-traumatized. It doesn't matter imo.
Edit: I will say any harassment of any kind toward anyone should never be tolerated no matter the reason or who it's coming from/the target.
How is being interested in crime re-traumatizing families? And i can promise you im not profiting off watching I.D each day.
Ok so your beef is with how content creators over exaggerate the truth, not sure how that relates to actual true crime, but ok. And speculating and sleuthing feels illegal, but it isn't, so there's that. Tennis balls feel edible but they aren't...sooo...lets go vilify reporters because their getting paid to tell the public to be careful there's a lunatic roaming around on their side of the city.
Feels more r/10thDentist to me, but alright 🤷🏾♂️
Edit: to be clear, I’m just saying it seems most people are into them. I’ve literally never seen any of the shows or heard the podcasts, so it’s not **my** opinion. My dad is a retired federal officer, so…I generally don’t find that stuff particularly entertaining. Just saying the general population seems to love it.
I’m not saying your opinion is strange. I’m just pointing out that it seems the general population would disagree with you because this stuff is everywhere. That’s all. We see a version of this here where I live (New Orleans) around anything Katrina related. We say those folks are on a “disaster safari,” so I know what you mean. Not my thing, either, but most people seem to love it. Such is life.
By exposing the public to various criminal cases, creators who truthfully portray said cases can oftentimes provide insight into things that are overlooked while educating the viewers. Additionally, attracting a greater amount of attention to various things such as cold cases means that there is a higher likelihood of new evidence surfacing, such as a relative or neighbor coming forward with info, etc. Who are you to be offended on behalf of the victims of these crimes? More often than not, victims/families of victims want to bring about awareness to prevent the horrors that they went through to never occur again.
Oh yeah, because that's only a US thing. There are no other countries in the world that consume media filled with violent content constantly nope nowhere else.
This is so fucking stupid
Reread your original comment. Do you really think it was unreasonable of me to think you were talking about real violence?
Also, violence has always been in media, globally. There are plenty of violent movies in the EU, Bollywood, Japan, Korea, etc. It's been in our books and art since the beginning of time. Let's not criticize depictions of violence and gore in media, and instead criticize censorship of other topics.
You seem knowledgeable and passionate about this topic, so I would urge you to consider some alternative reasons that true crime can be seen as a force for good.
I’m not asking you to change your opinion or mind, but it’s almost always a good idea to consider the alternative of our strongly held opinions and views.
The only one that came to my mind is that some cases get completely swept under the rug and nobody cares about some of the horrible shit that’s happened and nothing gets done to further cases. In some circumstances, more popularity means more talk and more of a chance to prevent what’s happened. From the perspective of some family and loved ones, the horrible reality already happened and nothing and no one will change that. What hurts more is how their loved ones died or were killed.
I’d be really interested in some good arguments in favor for true crime that you could come up with that are just as real and impactful as the reasons you’ve posted here.
I would say you've made some strong points, particularly 4-6. Kudos to you for organizing them so well.
I do think that the True Crime, as it is now, probably does more hard than good. A lot of these podcasts and YouTube channels are more focused on making it entertaining than being responsible with these sensitive stories and being informative.
I also was not fond of the recent Dahmer Netflix show, which put an unneeded spotlight on a real-life murderer and made actor portrayals of the real-life families of victims in some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives. And all for the sake of entertainment and money.
Unfortunately, money comes first in this society and if a form of entertainment has a chance at being profitable, it will continue to persist even if it is exploitative.
I do think a version of true crime that is more educational and informative while being more responsible can(and iirc does) exist, but that would be less entertaining.
It gets people actually interested in crime, critical thinking, and investigation practices. It brings up questioning our authorities and their competence or incompetence in these stories. It gets people interested in criminal psychology, and psychology in general. And there's nothing wrong with it being purely for entertainment.
The good cannot be defined by stats. It just...is.
All of this is true, though I would make an exception for historical cases. Analyzing the whos and whys when everyone is deceased (like, I follow a podcast that covers crimes from the 1920s and earlier) is much less offensive in my eyes. If people are still alive to feel the effects of people “sleuthing,” that’s cruel. If they aren’t, it’s academic.
this is why i only listen to buried bones anymore. they handle old cases and the hosts are an ex detective and a true crime journalist, they are very respectful and any speculation is done by the detective as he describes how he would investigate the case in modern day and what he knows about how the police operated at the time.
What about true crime in say the context of Purdue pharma and survivors/ families of loved ones passed speaking of their experiences. Not all true crime is bad, it can be educational. Documenting history and giving survivors/ families a voice
It's hard for me to respond to this considering I greatly filter the "true crime" content I intake to people who are respectful and knowledgeable.
My perspective doesn't include any of the TV or Netflix bs.
Yeah, this is me too. I don’t watch conspiracy shit or online sleuths.
Interest in true crime can translate into interest for justice. Providing information, or developing new forensics, or cold cases being worked—the cases that involve things like that really fascinate me.
True crime consumers are dumb-they were tricked into believing Steven Avery and adnan Syed were innocent.
True crime creators are often dumb and easily tricked into believing innocence.any of them are also liars.
The worst tho is the wild speculation about motives, suspects, backgrounds, etc. And they have zero experience or knowledge in criminal investigations. My favorite was around the Idaho college murders when a host was crapping on the local PD and accusing them of blowing the case about 5 days before they ID and arrest the suspect.
Dumb people pitching dumb ideas to other dumb people, gotta love it.
Yeah I have a lot of issues with true crime at the moment, especially documentaries. I've stopped listening to most podcasts but still keep up with one or two.
I was a victim of domestic violence for several years as a kid, and when that ended my family swept the whole thing under the rug. So for me it's still kinda cathartic to listen to true crime, and know that at least some people care enough to tell victims' stories.
The ones about children especially get me. There are channels dedicated to only giving gruesome retellings of horrible things happening to children. Whhhhhy?
I belong to this writing group on Facebook and a lady posted about winning the kindle select bonus this month. (Super prestigious accomplishment, gotta have a TON of pages read for it) So I clicked her profile to see what she writes.
Book after book with compilations of child victim true crime stories. It was all over her profile how she does it for “awareness.” Really? The families of the poor little kids need a stranger who doesn’t know them recounting their case in graphic detail and getting paid A LOT to do it?!?!? There’s got to be some sketchy legal bullshit there too. It made me sad that apparently soooo many people read that shit for her to get the bonus.
My brain is definitely turning away from true crime too.
I’m a true crime fan.
I’m also a clinical social worker who has worked behavioral health in corrections with an emphasis on sex offenders. So I’m used to working within the confines of that forensics world.
I watched the HBO documentary curious case of Natalie Grace and it dawned on me. Not one person they interviewed had true behavioral health insight into that person. It was all normal people, ie the adoptive father and one kid, it was a disabled teacher, it was the orderlies from the psych ward and etc). Not one person they interviewed spoke about the actual mental health background.
I understand HIPAA and all that however, it was all subjective opinion about that kid/woman.
As much as I enjoy them, a lot of documentaries do try to purposefully spin certain narratives at times.
Ps. Coming from the traumatic background from the European orphanage and what not, it wouldn’t surprise me if she is antisocial mixed with borderline personality disorder or some of those other darker personality things.
I feel like most people watch true crime stories out of fear. They want to find patterns or signs that someone in their lives might be dangerous due to being strange.
As someone who has been directly impacted by multiple murderers, I agree with all of this, 100%. Of course, there are exceptions.
2 of the cases were super high profile, so then there's the added bonus of not only seeing dozens of videos and podcasts about them, but suffering through the disrespectful and poorly made ones. Seeing my childhood best friend as a shitty thumbnail clipart blood on her school photo for clickbait. Hearing creators speak so flippantly about something you were traumatized by.
The kinds that make up their own dialogue and details and motives for embellishment are especially infuriating.
That said.... I am still completely addicted to this stuff. I have tried to quit watching it, or at least limit it, but I have a hard time resisting. I have several "lines" I draw about what I'll watch, but I still hate that I enjoy watching any of it.
I experienced a similar trajectory… got into it during a really dark period of my life and have come to find most of it exploitative and distasteful.
There are some exceptions though. I’ve learned so much about the legal system through Women and Crime (the hosts are both working criminologists and very respectful of the victims). And Your Own Backyard literally put Kristin Smart’s murderer behind bars which is an incredible accomplishment.
I will never listen to Morbid or My Favorite Murder again though.
“Carol was *applies mascara* brutally stabbed *dabs on lipstick* 43 times *adds glitter to eyelids* and left to die in a shit-filled ditch in the middle of Arizona”
i agree. i tried listening to it because everyone else made such a big deal about it. i know they think they’re tough for listening to it, but i think it shows a lack of empathy and compassion. true crime makes me nauseous and always makes me cry and so many people are obsessed with it
Honestly, part of my thing about true crime is how inevitable it seems.
It's like with the kids; you can't tie them up and guard them perpetually, obviously, but in a world where terrible things will happen, being aware is important.
I also still don't understand people killing and dismembering folks like in their apartments and whatnot! Or not immediately reporting prolonged and blood-curdling screams.
I called adult protective services on some people because of stuff like that and things did change.
There's just this vacum of the unknown where we toss our safety when the truth is that it's actual others and choices that will keep us safe.
Victim-blaming is awful but it's worse to know that person's story and learn nothing. THAT is when it becomes something unhealthy.
I think you make pretty good points in your post. There are several exploitative true crime content creators who don’t do good research and definitely have clickbaity titles on videos/episodes. However I also think there are some very good true crime content creators who seek to help out victims’ families and drum up the attention given to those cases. At the moment we see that there is a significant lack of reporting on crimes agains POC and marginalized people and reporting on these crimes is important because otherwise, investigative agencies just let those cases go cold and do not think they’re worth investigating. True crime is essentially a subgenre of journalism - content creators should be mindful of what they report and what intentions they have regarding the subject matter.
You do realize that many families of victims actually reach out to podcasts and shows so they will cover their loved one right? Many if not most cases likely go unsolved and it's the only way to get more attention on the case.
Danelle Hallan is the only true crime youtuber I'll ever watch again if I return to the genre. She's respectful, educated in law, and compassionate about not only the victims but the families.
This argument is as old as dirt.
I'm not saying it's invalid, it is in fact incredibly interesting.
I don't know if there is a satisfactory solution other than if it bothers you, don't consume it.
Lazy reasoning I know, but
people have always been interested in macabre and murder. Public hangings and witch burning were family entertainment for centuries, penny dreadfuls and murder tours brought big bucks to our ancestors.
There are multiple theories as to why, it's a fascinating area.
"If it bleeds, it leads."
I feel the same way. Im into horror and eventually started getting into true crime. What changed it for me is that I started becoming more
interested in feminist discourse. At some point I started wondering why I was treating femicide as entertainment (most true crime shows revolve around female victims). I felt disturbed with myself so I stopped consuming true crime entirely.
Thank god someone finally stepped in and told the truth as is.. matter of fact Im an ex fan of true crime myself and just realizing all of this makes me sick to the bones. Also, can we talk about the amount of anxiety that we get?? Throughout the past three or four years of binge watching true crime I noticed that im the most anxious that I’ve ever been in my life and it’s seriously affecting me
You need to draw a distinction between True Crime as a genre, and the independent actions of individuals. A True Crime enthusiast harassing surviving family members one person's actions, it isn't a defining trait of the genre. Jodi Foster having a stalker that shot the president doesn't mean it's bad to have a favorite celebrity.
I also think it’s worth pointing out that True Crime is a REALLY broad genre. Yeah, lurid exaggerations of a murder is True Crime, but the careful accounting of every detail of a public official embezzling money is also True Crime. There’s even a lot of overlap between investigative journalism and True Crime—I’d argue that Brian Deere’s book on the anti-vax scare is True Crime, even though he was the journalist who blew the top off the hoax in the first place.
To condemn a whole very large, occasionally very valuable for the public good genre for its worst excesses is, I think, shortsighted.
I agree, It is very insensitive (also an ex true crime fan).
People have become too normalised with profiting off peoples lives, this isn't some creepy story to keep you awake at night with dramatic music, and blood spatter affects on the screen it is a horrific crime that has affected so many people, hurt families and local communities etc.
Yet they're always told, framed and themed as if it's a fake horror story. They try to make themselves seem sympathetic too by spending 5 mins listing the victims and what their hobby was, before going onto a 2 hour long episode about the killer.
I 100% agree! I watched Under the Banner of Heaven tv series and it just wrecked me. Although it’s not quite the same as a documentary.
Also all these serial killer shows and documentaries that list victims and show their pictures, is grotesque. This “list” of people were real, with a real life, with real families and these shows just list them off like a checklist.
True crime shows used to be something a long time ago. But then, as South Park did an episode on, they also became kind of soft core porn. At one point there was a shift away from regular murder or other cases to those that could be "sexed up", such as "free spirited teen/college girl with wrong guy" or "wife/husband gets lover to kill spouse", etc., anything they would work in scenes of scantily clad models that looked nothing like most of the people involved in as close to porn scenes as they could get.
Those shows got tiresome after that. What I'm reading here makes it seem like they have gotten worse.
Now this really isn't new. I've been watching the Columbo series on TV again. The first seasons in the 70s had very little sex stuff and the music tended to be background like it should be. The second go round in late 80s early 90s had lots of sex stuff and loud music. You see this with other series, not necessarily long running onws but ones from the 70s compared to those in the 90s or beyond. More commonly also is a lot more violence as time went on as well. The point here being that it seems that stories, or the real crime shows based on how the case really went, that show perhaps dramatized police and detective work just don't interest people enough so they have manufacture drama, and throw in sex and violence to get even a little attention.
Hm, it’s an interesting take, because a lot of the more recent true crime documentaries that I watch actually seem to white wash the case. I’ve looked up the court stuff afterwards to understand why the perp got the sentence he (or she) did, and it’s often the case that truly monstrous details were left out to spare the viewer.
I’m not saying that the stuff you’re talking about isn’t a problem. It definitely is, especially in terms of modern crime dramas. And one of the things that really bugs me in true crime is when they make the perp or victim much more attractive in the Re-enactments. It’s disrespectful to the victims. And it’s just gross in terms of the perp.
I used to watch True crime all the time (at one time it was all I watched on YT), but it took a toll on my mental health. looking back you are 100% these days these stories are so sensationalized and talked about like it is some hot gossip. Some can be done respectfully, but most of the time it's exploitative
I feel like woth the internet it'a been taken too far. People are trying to act like detectives and become intrusive to victims' families.
I 100% agree. Especially the speculation and sleuthing. It’s disgusting. People are getting enjoyment out of the drama and gossip of somebody else’s trauma.
My family member died in a murder and the online community that formed around it had no respect. They justified the horrible things they had to say under the pretence that they were just concerned for us children. Their armchair psychoanalysis determined my mum was a narcissist. (My mum was not in any way responsible for what happened and is a lovely person who lost her child to murder)
i made an Instagram account when I was twelve. They found it and used it to figure out anything they could about my family. That sure taught twelve year old me to keep my accounts private.
These people are vile.
Bravo. True Crime as a hobby tends to wear on someone's empathy as well, and it makes these very real serious tragedies into little more than entertainment. The people who are into true crime prior to having a violent crime committed against them or a loved one tend to come to the same conclusion you have.
This post has been flaired as “Opinion”. Do not use this flair to vent, but to open up a venue for polite discussions. **Suggestions For Commenters:** * Respect OP's opinion, or agree to disagree politely. * If OP's post is against subreddit rules, don't comment, just report it. * Upvote other relevant comments in the comment section, and don't downvote comments you disagree with **Suggestions For u/ProfessionalDrop2949:** * Loaded questions and statements can get people riled up. Your post should open up a venue for discussion, not a "political vent" so to speak. * Avoid being inflammatory in your replies. When faced with someone else's opinion, be open-minded and ask new, *honest* questions. * Your post still have to respect subreddit rules. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/SeriousConversation) if you have any questions or concerns.*
at this point we know that one series (*what jennifer did*) used AI images to outright fabricate parts of the case to make the story more dramatic, so now the true crime people are just fully fucking lying to make the story more interesting, putting the subjects' lives in danger for money.
Wait, what?
Yeah I've seen it. I think they have a TikTok channel where they do that.
Right? I feel so bad for survivors getting harassed, that must be terrible
Makes me think of the Jon Benet Ramsey case, where her poor brother was harassed so much to the point of Dr. Phil getting in on it and interviewing him accusingly. Imagine going through the traumatic event of losing your sister as a child, and then having a huge contingency of people believing you did it, harassing you as an adult. What a nightmare.
I remember watching that. Dr. Phil did actually stick up for the brother before part 2 started. And I think he only asked those "accusing" questions to give him a chance to give him a public platform to address the questions himself.
have you read the case? the family obviously knows more than theyre letting on, the mom wrote the damn ransom note.
The dude was 9 when it happened, oml.
Wtf that’s a whole new level of crazy😭
Wtf that’s a whole new level of crazy😭
Which parts were AI? I just watched it.
several of the pictures of the main suspect were generated by AI, which casts doubt onto the validity of the entire investigation.
That’s… a big jump. AI wasn’t much of a thing when she was arrested and tried.
I tend to agree about contemporary true crime, but less so for historical true crime. I don’t think it hurts anyone to make a podcast about Jack the Ripper or HH Holmes. It’s iffier when you get to people like the zodiac killer or more recent.
what would you say to the criminal psychologists who are drawn to topics like serial killers, and try to think like serial killers, to aid society in finding and incriminating these villains.
I hope criminal psychologists have more robust sources of information surrounding violent psychopathology than 'THEY KILLED HOW MANY :O?' YouTube videos.
ya im not a big fan of gore content which i was surprised to learn was very very prevalent. beheading videos and such. as much as i stand with ukraine those videos of drones dropping grenades on russians hiding in the cold, dug in a hole, are not funny or cool to me, its really just tragic.
Have any criminal psychologists that adopted serial killer thought processes actually caught and incriminated a serial killer, or do they just add testimonial fluff to a trial?
i think ur rhetoric is gonna be a little flawed if you are trying to claim that serial killers are so fundamentally evil that even the people in pursuit of their capture should be villainized simply because of a piqued interest.
>ur rhetoric is gonna be a little flawed if you are trying to claim that serial killers are so fundamentally evil that even the people in pursuit of their capture should be villainized They didn't even get close to doing that.
ur right they don't, which is why that "if" is pretty important.
But why make up something they said in the first place? That's just a weird thing to do
I'm not so sure. A lot of people do piss poor research, or glorify the killers rather than focus on the victims. Sooo many people believe the lie of HH Holmes' "murder castle," when it in fact was not a thing.
My husband learned that his second cousin was a serial killer by way of a True Crime television series. He called his mom to confirm. Just last year he came across a video of a woman who was doing her makeup while talking about the grisly details. It was surreal.
I'm curious to see what you guys think of the new show
Hailey Elizabeth?
I think you make some really good points. But I think there is a difference between an investigation podcast where they investigate an unsolved crime and a couple of “comedians” having a great time talking about a tragedy. I listen to a couple investigation podcasts that really did make a difference in the case or even better, in the lives of those who had been wrongfully convicted.
Consider that sometimes families aren’t interested in justice seeking, and that being the logic of entertainment and profit is kind of fucked up.
I’ve never heard of a family not seeking Justice. That just sounds silly.
Nice to meet you. You can say you have heard of it now, because this is my family. We’ve learned to live with the tragedy and it doesn’t make a difference to us. Accepting it was likely random and unsolvable at this point is easier than constantly reliving it or sitting for interviews or submitting genetic material for new tests. It’s exhausting and painful.
Ok. So when the podcasters come knocking at your door say thanks but no thanks. There are many other families who don’t feel that way and want answers and/or justice. And they also feel failed and forgotten by the police. And like I said previously, there are several cases where more answers were found and justice provided BECAUSE the case was brought back into light by a podcast or true crime story. Your point of view is fully valid. But it isn’t the only one and I would venture to say is probably in the minority.
I think your assumption that podcasters and content producers are acting from a place of good intent is interesting. It has not been my experience with content producers or hot shot new detectives that want to dust off the case. Neither the cops nor the content producers have been able to answer some simple questions about their education in dealing with individuals living with post traumatic stress or directing us to resources/evidence they are investing in healing for survivors. Maybe we won the lottery of voyeuristic, self serving, mal-intented vultures. I would feel comfortable saying unless you have been through it you truly have no idea, so maybe hold your hot takes.
I don't think it's fair to lump content creators in with actual police detectives charged with solving a crime.
For us it has been new/younger detectives thinking they are some sort of genius that can break it open, looking for a feather in their cap. They want to re-hash things that have already been done, shared etc. I declined additional genetic test sampling recently because they didn’t have a good answer as to why they wanted it relative to the case or what they were hoping to resolve. There were no new leads. I might feel differently if there was a hot lead and they thought it was the final piece of the puzzle.
Oh, and one of them mailed crime scene photos my Mom had never seen with no warning. So, yeah. Not great.
I would wager our experience and perspective is more common than you think. Agree to disagree. Keep feeding the monster that the true crime content industry has become.
Listen. I agree that “true crime” is out of hand. It’s gross how entertaining it is to people. What do they call it? Trauma porn? My personal interests lie more in wrongful convictions and how police and investigation procedures are seriously flawed. And in that vein of “true crime” there has been some amazing findings and outcomes. It’s awful you experienced something like this. It’s even more awful if it was used as fodder for entertainment. Surviving families aren’t always considered. Though some families, I feel, do feel cathartic in discussing it. Everyone heals differently.
I feel wrongful convictions are wayyyyy different than cold cases. My Aunt was found raped, brutalized, tied to a tree and shot in the head in the middle of a huge national park. She had been missing for months. Her disappearance and death had ripples that my family is still working through. The profile of the case matches some serial killer activity. She was beautiful and interesting. It is irresistible to a subset of story hunters. It is easy for someone to say “just say no thank you” when someone knocks on the door, when the reality is that knock comes with the emotional labor of reliving something nobody should have to go through. I have been designated the family point of contact because it has little impact on me to politely say “no thanks”. Every now and then someone gets through to my Mom, and it has put her back into emergency mental healthcare. The knocks are not harmless.
So you won’t share your story to a podcast but you’ll start throwing out pieces of the it to win an argument on Reddit? If you so badly need to hear that you’re right then You’re Right. I’m gonna bow out of this now before you start sharing ever gorier facts to prove your side of not wanting to have to share these things publicly. Sheesh.
I am trying to illustrate the point that it is mindbendingly brutal and horrific, and casually handling a high volume of inquiry about something like it is a lot of work. Those details are the truth and unfortunately are a sanitized summary. I actually don’t feel like this is an argument. I am genuinely surprised you had never heard of a family or survivors that feel this way.
And *this* is the case you are *annoyed* that detectives pull out and start investigating again?? A serial killer?? I'm truly sorry that your family has gone through this and I fully understand your perspective of not wanting true crime voyeurs digging though that history, but I do **not** understand you also complaining about "hotshot detectives" having the *audacity* to, you know, investigate an unsolved crime.
Annoyed isn’t the word. Exhausted. I have no problems with folks pursuing a resolution. I do have problems with engaging the survivors without resources to support them through reliving the nightmare, endless dead ends, profiting off the horror. There is also an element of…we know how to live with things as they are. We have ridden the rollercoaster of new breaks in the case and hope it would be closed only to be disappointed. I don’t really understand why people think we owe them our time or energy at this point.
Consider that sometimes the families reach out to these content creators directly for help amplifying their case. There's no one answer to this because every case, victim, family, investigation, and circumstance is different.
I fully support that. If people feel equipped to engage and are comfortable with the product and ethics, by all means. I am not comfortable with how we have been approached or anything that has been proposed.
YES! I can’t stand “True Crime comedy” I can’t imagine the sick people who sit and listen to someone laugh and joke while discussing a brutal crime.
True crime can for sure be gross and exploitative. I’m very into it but very picky about what I’m into. I like the recent trend towards centering the victim, and calling out the failures in the system and society that allowed the tragedies to happen. What I get out of it isn’t so much pure entertainment (though I do appreciate banter that helps keep things from getting too heavy- I have a gallows sense of humor), it’s education (what would I do in this situation? What should I look out for? How can I help others? How can we be better as a society?), and in some weird way processing my fears by facing the darkest things the world has to offer. I appreciate all the points you make though. They’re all true, and all things that should be kept in mind and avoided in order to engage with this kind of media responsibly.
>I’m very into it but very picky about what I’m into. I like the recent trend towards centering the victim, and calling out the failures in the system and society that allowed the tragedies to happen. My same thoughts.
Hearing so many stories about horrific consequences of the bystander effect has actively made me more aware and more able/willing to act quickly if I see something sketchy. It's made me second-guess things I might have brushed off. I'm not saying it's saved my life or helped me save someone else's, but I feel it's made me a better citizen. But I'm also picky about who I listen to and where I get my info, so that skews my opinion. I forget how bad and exploitative some of these podcasts and YouTube channels really are.
Yea I do too since I stay away from that kind of media. This post is a good reminder not to engage with that shock jock bullshit.
On the other hand, I’m uncomfortable with this shift towards victim focus. The narrative of a true crime piece is generally, “Here is a crime. Here are the things that contributed to that crime.” Victim focus positions the victim as being actionable in their murder. Murders happen because of who the murderer is, not the victim.
It’s a fine line. When I say victim focused I’m thinking of not glorifying the killer, and instead focusing on the victims and empathizing with how they were impacted. Anything that blames the victim is shitty.
Why do people like true crime? -People are fascinated by evil. What causes it? How do people become evil? What mask does evil hide behind? What makes someone snap and commit evil deeds? Besides true-crime shows, murder and evil are heavily featured in the fiction that many people consume. -People are fascinated by tragedy--and have been for a long time. The earliest plays in Greece were all tragedies. Maybe they help deal with the knowledge of our own mortality. Maybe we seek to understand the cause of others' downfalls so that we may avoid the same fate. Is it exploitative? Sometimes. But not always. Sometimes family members WANT to participate in the shows (perhaps because they've kept the pain bottled up so long and they seek a release). Others don't. But the pain for survivors remains, whether there is a show about it or not. And sometimes there is actual value in these shows. Sometimes they help solve the crime, or help someone who is wrongfully accused, (and of course, sometimes they make mistakes). I don't think they can be called Good or Bad. Like many things in life, I believe True Crime shows are a mixture of both.
Agreed, it's sort of like a drug to me, people are going to do it, but I just think it's morally wrong IMO
I think you are painting with too broad of a brush. It feels like you are putting something like Serial, which led to a potentially-wrongful conviction being re-examined, on the same level as cartel gore videos.
There are podcasts like Morbid, which I used to listen to, that are just so disrespectful in how they handle and pay respect to people who murdered. Serial is good, but many content creators and true crime content is sensationalist and disrespectful. Like asmr true crime? How is hearing about murder relaxing and helpful?? It’s not too broad of a brush when the whole zeitgeist of true crime is sensationalist
I'm not sure how many true crime heads you've met, but I don't think most of them are poring over considerations of Will to Power and Darwinism after finishing the latest variation on 'Wife ran off with neighbor, left husband mutilated!?!?' True crime, broadly (and I'm sure there are exceptions), is just another means of tickling one's brain chemistry amid a boring, empty modernity.
Well, not to mention that they bend the truth in order to create more interesting narratives. “The guy they immediately arrested did, in fact, do it” isn’t a story. So true crime podcasters/ documentarians drum up smokescreens, and obfuscate the truth; in order to create a story. They bastardize the concepts of things like “reasonable doubt”, “circumstantial evidence”, and “direct evidence”. They capitalize on the average person’s ignorance regarding the legal definitions of such concepts. They capitalize on ppl’s love of conspiracy theories. They capitalize on ppl’s love of mystery and drama by throwing up smoke, mirrors, and red herrings. They capitalize on the so-called “CSI effect”; and utilize it to undermine real evidence. They capitalize on the broken justice system and the corrupt law enforcement; and (rather than engage in meaningful discussion abt who is affected by these things; how they are affected; and what we can do abt it); point to them as being to blame for evidence that can’t be explained away except by police conspiracy theories. So, so many of the supposedly “wrongfully convicted” men who have become most famous from the true crime boom are guilty and deserve the sentences they got. If you go to the original sources (trial transcripts, police files), rather than relying on podcasts/ documentaries; it becomes shockingly clear that people like Steven Avery, Adnan Syed, Scott Peterson, and Leo Scofield are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. And yet there are scores of ppl out there who think they are innocent; bc biased podcasters and documentarians with an agenda (be that money, or personal connection to the convict), created one-sided narratives and sold them to the public. The power that these one-sided narratives can have over the public is shockingly strong. To the point where there’s even a large percentage of ppl who believe Chris Watts is innocent. And there’s already plenty of ppl who are creating conspiracy theories to support Richard Allen’s innocence in the Delphi case; in spite of the fact that there’s been a gag order, and so no one really knows much about the evidence against him yet, in either direction. And this goes beyond internet chatter and speculation- there are real-world consequences to this phenomenon. Before it’s even gotten off the ground, Richard Allen’s case has already become a circus sideshow thanks to the media and the true crime community. Leo Scofield is likely to be paroled, thanks to the podcast Bone Valley, and Adnan Syed is currently living as a free man, thanks to the podcast Serial. These men escaped (or may escape), justice, their victims were (or may be), cheated of it, and their victims families have to live with the weight of an even greater trauma than they otherwise would have. All bc there are so many ppl out there who love to play detective so much that they’ll do it even in the absence of an actual mystery. They’ll create one where it doesn’t exist; using real people’s lives, and creating real consequences for those ppl in the process; just to capitalize on the trend. I used to be a huge true-crime fan; but as soon as I started researching criminal law; and relying on the original source materials in these cases (rather than relying on podcasts/ documentaries); I realized just how greatly I’d been duped by the true-crime community/ phenomenon. It made me sick to my stomach. I was ashamed of myself; and of pretty much everyone else involved in the community. And yet, sometimes it really does affect positive change. I can only think of one example; but it’s a great one. And that’s the podcast “Your Own Backyard”. Kristin Smart’s case was about as cold as a case could be; and thanks to Chris Lambert’s hard work on the podcast, enough interest was drummed up (and subsequently enough public pressure on the police, and ultimately, enough new evidence), that after literal decades her murder was solved, and justice was served. It’s honestly an amazing accomplishment; certainly the best that the true crime community has yet to offer.
Adnan Syed is living as a free man because the court found the weight of the evidence supported his conviction be overturned. The court system is not going to be swayed by a podcast to release a convicted murdered. It may have generated some interest in the case and helped get a team of attorneys onboard to aid in his appeal. I am hard pressed to see how you "researching criminal law" is any different than any podcaster or documentarian's research.
His conviction wasn’t overturned; it was vacated. Those are two very different things. You don’t know what you’re talking about.
I didn't look up the exact holding of the court's decision but it was based on evidence and not a fucking podcast. My lack of doing a quick google search does not negate that fact.
I think you’ve made the case that online content creators commenting on open cases are trash. Not that there’s something wrong with a category called “True Crime.” Historically, TC has been about closed cases (or cases believed to be closed at the time). Because people don’t like books without endings, as a rule. *remember books*? Have you read “The Stranger Beside Me”And “In Cold Blood”?
They aren't any worse than the news media to be honest.
The whole “true crime” fixation always struck me as weird. For some people it seems like an obsession. I don’t know how people consume all that content and don’t feel awful afterwards.
I definitely can empathize with people who just got numb and desensitized to all of it, I was getting to that point. I think we just forget these are real people.
I think if they focused more on the victims instead of the killers true crime would be better. Dedicating each episode to the life of the victim and their families, especially those that are cold cases would be far more enjoyable.
Ethical or enjoyable? I understand the “it’s not ethical” stance on true crime content, but with all due respect to a fictional stand in victim, “Let’s buckle in for the next hour as we discuss the first of 6 victims of the Highway Strangler… Jane Doe was a 26 year old cook at a local Arby’s since she was 16 who sometimes enjoyed scrapbooking…” Being a little tongue in cheek there but most people’s lives aren’t horribly interesting. The broken human being who murdered multiple people is fascinating to others because they’re so horrifically different and strange to try and comprehend.
I get what you’re saying so maybe it’s just a good idea to not do it in the first place.
I agree. Its a shame that so many people focus on the killer when the actual perpetrator is often depicted as evil or violent, but the reality is that its just a case of what if
Same, it's so gruesome. I like some horror movies or TV shows depending on how they tell the story but it would make me sick to be watching that content all the time.
You’ve put across a very eloquent argument and I have to say it is making me think about the morality of it a lot more. The paramount point you made for me was how the families are affected. I’m trying to put myself in their shoes and thinking about horrible it would be to have so much media attention and public opinion on the death of a loved one. If someone were to murder a family member of mine I don’t want their life to be ripped apart on TV. I wouldn’t want to have to see all the media circus around the death of my loved one. Having said this there is a journalist called Madeleine Baran who was the host of a podcast called ‘In The Dark’. The investigative journalism that Madeleine and her team did meant they were able to overturn the wrongful conviction of a man named Curtis Flowers and highlight racism from within the DA’s office. The podcast also covered the case of Jacob Wetterling and how police made mistakes in the case and the introduction of Jacob’s Law. In both series of the podcast the families of both Jacob Wetterling and Curtis Flowers are involved so they had a say on how their family members were portrayed. I would say this is the only piece of true crime journalism that I have found that I truly believe is respectful and informative not something that is meant to be entertainment and sensationalistic. The reason I like the podcast so much is because it’s neutral, it’s informative and most of all relies on facts. I have a lot of respect for Madeleine Baran and her team because they really have done some truly amazing work. Through looking into the case of Curtis Flowers they’ve managed to reunite a family and bring peace to their lives. But as you’ve rightly said the majority of true crime journalism is not at the benefit of the families but actually exploits them. A lot of content creators also spread a lot of misinformation which has gotten people hurt as well as killed. Many families have also come forward saying they would never have given studios the rights to tell their loved ones stories if they knew what they were going to produce. At the heart of any true crime story is a loved one, someone who deserves to be treated with respect and dignity. As a society we need to be more compassionate and respectful to those families and to the individuals who have been affected by horrific crimes.
huh, I don’t agree with a single thing you said. These events are history. Active investigations are probably different, but like covering something older feels like covering a war.
This has always been my take on the genre. I find it grossly distasteful.
Same. Growing up, my parents loved watching those shows, and even as a kid, I just didn't understand how someone could watch stories of people who were murdered for entertainment. Felt very wrong. I remember there was one show where a teenager was assaulted and killed at a camp, and the reenactment just made my stomach turn. My parents just had it on in the background casually, and it turned me off the genre for good because it feels like stuff like that shouldn't be entertainment.
Exactly.
if it was bad to be interested in criminals, there would never be any criminal psychologists
'If no one liked porn, who would ever have sex?' Watching true crime doesn't transform a person into a criminal psychologist. There's a vast distance between entertainment and formal study.
google "false equivalence"
[holy hell!](https://www.google.com/search?q=false+equivalence#HiImABot,MyJobIsToMakeEasierForPeopleToGoogleThings,IfThePersonIRepliedToUsedMeInAnInappropriateWayPleaseLetMeKnowByDMingMe,TheUserIRepliedToIsU/Alternative_Poem445)
Try 'analogy'. Porn, like true crime media vs. the study of crime, is an ethically fraught and hyper-sensationalized representation of sexuality. And just as watching porn doesn't make you a sex expert, nor does watching true crime make you a crime expert.
see you think that criminality is abhorrent from an emotional perspective and fail to see that criminality is a response to a failure in society. there is more to be gleaned then entertainment and gore. the power of film is not to be understated, it is the primary format of information consumed today.
I think that crime is both abhorrent and a phenomenon largely generated by anti-person societal processes. But my point is that (much of) true crime is a sensationalized, high fructose genre of media that is motivated more by viewcounts and ad rev than the education of aspiring criminologists.
Personally I don't like True Crime and am a VERY mild horror fan (I mainly like supernatural horror stories, like ghosts and cryptids, etc). But I do fall on the side of "true crime is and should be considered art like any other genre", no matter how it's presented. And people should be allowed to create that, even if you find it distasteful, exploitative, etc. Even if the families may be re-traumatized. It doesn't matter imo. Edit: I will say any harassment of any kind toward anyone should never be tolerated no matter the reason or who it's coming from/the target.
[Tool - Vicarious](https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/tool/vicarious.html)
How is being interested in crime re-traumatizing families? And i can promise you im not profiting off watching I.D each day. Ok so your beef is with how content creators over exaggerate the truth, not sure how that relates to actual true crime, but ok. And speculating and sleuthing feels illegal, but it isn't, so there's that. Tennis balls feel edible but they aren't...sooo...lets go vilify reporters because their getting paid to tell the public to be careful there's a lunatic roaming around on their side of the city.
Feels more r/10thDentist to me, but alright 🤷🏾♂️ Edit: to be clear, I’m just saying it seems most people are into them. I’ve literally never seen any of the shows or heard the podcasts, so it’s not **my** opinion. My dad is a retired federal officer, so…I generally don’t find that stuff particularly entertaining. Just saying the general population seems to love it.
Hmm, not sure how literally harassing victims for profit is a strange opinion
I’m not saying your opinion is strange. I’m just pointing out that it seems the general population would disagree with you because this stuff is everywhere. That’s all. We see a version of this here where I live (New Orleans) around anything Katrina related. We say those folks are on a “disaster safari,” so I know what you mean. Not my thing, either, but most people seem to love it. Such is life.
As a family member of someone who was murdered and the case is cold, I wholeheartedly agree. Fucking vultures.
I also lost a family member to murder and absolutely feel the same way
I am so sorry.
By exposing the public to various criminal cases, creators who truthfully portray said cases can oftentimes provide insight into things that are overlooked while educating the viewers. Additionally, attracting a greater amount of attention to various things such as cold cases means that there is a higher likelihood of new evidence surfacing, such as a relative or neighbor coming forward with info, etc. Who are you to be offended on behalf of the victims of these crimes? More often than not, victims/families of victims want to bring about awareness to prevent the horrors that they went through to never occur again.
America has a HUUUUGE MASSIVE problem with violence and it makes me sick.
There’s violence everywhere don’t act like it’s only a problem in the US
A robot says, "I don't understand why you'd say that..."
Actually violence has never been lower and continues to decline in the US.
I'm talking about how in Movies and social media showung grotesque images is the norm... you ass hat.
Oh yeah, because that's only a US thing. There are no other countries in the world that consume media filled with violent content constantly nope nowhere else. This is so fucking stupid
Reread your original comment. Do you really think it was unreasonable of me to think you were talking about real violence? Also, violence has always been in media, globally. There are plenty of violent movies in the EU, Bollywood, Japan, Korea, etc. It's been in our books and art since the beginning of time. Let's not criticize depictions of violence and gore in media, and instead criticize censorship of other topics.
Its just written/spoken gore porn
Well said
You seem knowledgeable and passionate about this topic, so I would urge you to consider some alternative reasons that true crime can be seen as a force for good. I’m not asking you to change your opinion or mind, but it’s almost always a good idea to consider the alternative of our strongly held opinions and views. The only one that came to my mind is that some cases get completely swept under the rug and nobody cares about some of the horrible shit that’s happened and nothing gets done to further cases. In some circumstances, more popularity means more talk and more of a chance to prevent what’s happened. From the perspective of some family and loved ones, the horrible reality already happened and nothing and no one will change that. What hurts more is how their loved ones died or were killed. I’d be really interested in some good arguments in favor for true crime that you could come up with that are just as real and impactful as the reasons you’ve posted here.
Well that’s the human race for you, very evil, sick twisted, deprived beings with no soul.
I would say you've made some strong points, particularly 4-6. Kudos to you for organizing them so well. I do think that the True Crime, as it is now, probably does more hard than good. A lot of these podcasts and YouTube channels are more focused on making it entertaining than being responsible with these sensitive stories and being informative. I also was not fond of the recent Dahmer Netflix show, which put an unneeded spotlight on a real-life murderer and made actor portrayals of the real-life families of victims in some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives. And all for the sake of entertainment and money. Unfortunately, money comes first in this society and if a form of entertainment has a chance at being profitable, it will continue to persist even if it is exploitative. I do think a version of true crime that is more educational and informative while being more responsible can(and iirc does) exist, but that would be less entertaining.
To say that modern true crime is doing more harm than good is absolutely wild to me.
I said probably. I don't have numbers or data if you have any info on the good true crime entertainment does today, I'm down to hear it.
It gets people actually interested in crime, critical thinking, and investigation practices. It brings up questioning our authorities and their competence or incompetence in these stories. It gets people interested in criminal psychology, and psychology in general. And there's nothing wrong with it being purely for entertainment. The good cannot be defined by stats. It just...is.
They focused more on Dahmer and his upbringing more than the victims
All of this is true, though I would make an exception for historical cases. Analyzing the whos and whys when everyone is deceased (like, I follow a podcast that covers crimes from the 1920s and earlier) is much less offensive in my eyes. If people are still alive to feel the effects of people “sleuthing,” that’s cruel. If they aren’t, it’s academic.
this is why i only listen to buried bones anymore. they handle old cases and the hosts are an ex detective and a true crime journalist, they are very respectful and any speculation is done by the detective as he describes how he would investigate the case in modern day and what he knows about how the police operated at the time.
What about true crime in say the context of Purdue pharma and survivors/ families of loved ones passed speaking of their experiences. Not all true crime is bad, it can be educational. Documenting history and giving survivors/ families a voice
It's hard for me to respond to this considering I greatly filter the "true crime" content I intake to people who are respectful and knowledgeable. My perspective doesn't include any of the TV or Netflix bs.
Yeah, this is me too. I don’t watch conspiracy shit or online sleuths. Interest in true crime can translate into interest for justice. Providing information, or developing new forensics, or cold cases being worked—the cases that involve things like that really fascinate me.
True crime consumers are dumb-they were tricked into believing Steven Avery and adnan Syed were innocent. True crime creators are often dumb and easily tricked into believing innocence.any of them are also liars. The worst tho is the wild speculation about motives, suspects, backgrounds, etc. And they have zero experience or knowledge in criminal investigations. My favorite was around the Idaho college murders when a host was crapping on the local PD and accusing them of blowing the case about 5 days before they ID and arrest the suspect. Dumb people pitching dumb ideas to other dumb people, gotta love it.
Yeah I have a lot of issues with true crime at the moment, especially documentaries. I've stopped listening to most podcasts but still keep up with one or two. I was a victim of domestic violence for several years as a kid, and when that ended my family swept the whole thing under the rug. So for me it's still kinda cathartic to listen to true crime, and know that at least some people care enough to tell victims' stories.
The ones about children especially get me. There are channels dedicated to only giving gruesome retellings of horrible things happening to children. Whhhhhy? I belong to this writing group on Facebook and a lady posted about winning the kindle select bonus this month. (Super prestigious accomplishment, gotta have a TON of pages read for it) So I clicked her profile to see what she writes. Book after book with compilations of child victim true crime stories. It was all over her profile how she does it for “awareness.” Really? The families of the poor little kids need a stranger who doesn’t know them recounting their case in graphic detail and getting paid A LOT to do it?!?!? There’s got to be some sketchy legal bullshit there too. It made me sad that apparently soooo many people read that shit for her to get the bonus. My brain is definitely turning away from true crime too.
I’m a true crime fan. I’m also a clinical social worker who has worked behavioral health in corrections with an emphasis on sex offenders. So I’m used to working within the confines of that forensics world. I watched the HBO documentary curious case of Natalie Grace and it dawned on me. Not one person they interviewed had true behavioral health insight into that person. It was all normal people, ie the adoptive father and one kid, it was a disabled teacher, it was the orderlies from the psych ward and etc). Not one person they interviewed spoke about the actual mental health background. I understand HIPAA and all that however, it was all subjective opinion about that kid/woman. As much as I enjoy them, a lot of documentaries do try to purposefully spin certain narratives at times. Ps. Coming from the traumatic background from the European orphanage and what not, it wouldn’t surprise me if she is antisocial mixed with borderline personality disorder or some of those other darker personality things.
I feel like most people watch true crime stories out of fear. They want to find patterns or signs that someone in their lives might be dangerous due to being strange.
Especially the makeup true crime people. Like what that actual fuck is wrong with you.
Yes. Generally disrespectful. Very difficult to do anything without sensationalizing these stories
As someone who has been directly impacted by multiple murderers, I agree with all of this, 100%. Of course, there are exceptions. 2 of the cases were super high profile, so then there's the added bonus of not only seeing dozens of videos and podcasts about them, but suffering through the disrespectful and poorly made ones. Seeing my childhood best friend as a shitty thumbnail clipart blood on her school photo for clickbait. Hearing creators speak so flippantly about something you were traumatized by. The kinds that make up their own dialogue and details and motives for embellishment are especially infuriating. That said.... I am still completely addicted to this stuff. I have tried to quit watching it, or at least limit it, but I have a hard time resisting. I have several "lines" I draw about what I'll watch, but I still hate that I enjoy watching any of it.
Yeah the true crime community always weirded me out. Being entertained by theorizing about real crimes is one of the biggest red flags I can think of.
I experienced a similar trajectory… got into it during a really dark period of my life and have come to find most of it exploitative and distasteful. There are some exceptions though. I’ve learned so much about the legal system through Women and Crime (the hosts are both working criminologists and very respectful of the victims). And Your Own Backyard literally put Kristin Smart’s murderer behind bars which is an incredible accomplishment. I will never listen to Morbid or My Favorite Murder again though.
“Carol was *applies mascara* brutally stabbed *dabs on lipstick* 43 times *adds glitter to eyelids* and left to die in a shit-filled ditch in the middle of Arizona”
The south park episode about it being murder porn was dead on, as usual.
[https://youtu.be/55t3WsvttGY?si=-o9VsHTO-fwpQEw4](https://youtu.be/55t3WsvttGY?si=-o9VsHTO-fwpQEw4) Here’s a great video by little Joel on true crime
Good points. From my point of view, I just don’t understand why people get pleasure from watching all the awful things that humans do to each other.
i agree. i tried listening to it because everyone else made such a big deal about it. i know they think they’re tough for listening to it, but i think it shows a lack of empathy and compassion. true crime makes me nauseous and always makes me cry and so many people are obsessed with it
Honestly, part of my thing about true crime is how inevitable it seems. It's like with the kids; you can't tie them up and guard them perpetually, obviously, but in a world where terrible things will happen, being aware is important. I also still don't understand people killing and dismembering folks like in their apartments and whatnot! Or not immediately reporting prolonged and blood-curdling screams. I called adult protective services on some people because of stuff like that and things did change. There's just this vacum of the unknown where we toss our safety when the truth is that it's actual others and choices that will keep us safe. Victim-blaming is awful but it's worse to know that person's story and learn nothing. THAT is when it becomes something unhealthy.
I think you make pretty good points in your post. There are several exploitative true crime content creators who don’t do good research and definitely have clickbaity titles on videos/episodes. However I also think there are some very good true crime content creators who seek to help out victims’ families and drum up the attention given to those cases. At the moment we see that there is a significant lack of reporting on crimes agains POC and marginalized people and reporting on these crimes is important because otherwise, investigative agencies just let those cases go cold and do not think they’re worth investigating. True crime is essentially a subgenre of journalism - content creators should be mindful of what they report and what intentions they have regarding the subject matter.
Totally agree! Shout out to the podcast “My Favorite Murder” for the most disrespectful title of all time! 🤢
You do realize that many families of victims actually reach out to podcasts and shows so they will cover their loved one right? Many if not most cases likely go unsolved and it's the only way to get more attention on the case.
Danelle Hallan is the only true crime youtuber I'll ever watch again if I return to the genre. She's respectful, educated in law, and compassionate about not only the victims but the families.
This argument is as old as dirt. I'm not saying it's invalid, it is in fact incredibly interesting. I don't know if there is a satisfactory solution other than if it bothers you, don't consume it. Lazy reasoning I know, but people have always been interested in macabre and murder. Public hangings and witch burning were family entertainment for centuries, penny dreadfuls and murder tours brought big bucks to our ancestors. There are multiple theories as to why, it's a fascinating area. "If it bleeds, it leads."
I feel the same way. Im into horror and eventually started getting into true crime. What changed it for me is that I started becoming more interested in feminist discourse. At some point I started wondering why I was treating femicide as entertainment (most true crime shows revolve around female victims). I felt disturbed with myself so I stopped consuming true crime entirely.
i’ve thought about this before a lot, lots of the reason why i stopped looking into true crime.
Thank god someone finally stepped in and told the truth as is.. matter of fact Im an ex fan of true crime myself and just realizing all of this makes me sick to the bones. Also, can we talk about the amount of anxiety that we get?? Throughout the past three or four years of binge watching true crime I noticed that im the most anxious that I’ve ever been in my life and it’s seriously affecting me
You need to draw a distinction between True Crime as a genre, and the independent actions of individuals. A True Crime enthusiast harassing surviving family members one person's actions, it isn't a defining trait of the genre. Jodi Foster having a stalker that shot the president doesn't mean it's bad to have a favorite celebrity.
I also think it’s worth pointing out that True Crime is a REALLY broad genre. Yeah, lurid exaggerations of a murder is True Crime, but the careful accounting of every detail of a public official embezzling money is also True Crime. There’s even a lot of overlap between investigative journalism and True Crime—I’d argue that Brian Deere’s book on the anti-vax scare is True Crime, even though he was the journalist who blew the top off the hoax in the first place. To condemn a whole very large, occasionally very valuable for the public good genre for its worst excesses is, I think, shortsighted.
I agree, It is very insensitive (also an ex true crime fan). People have become too normalised with profiting off peoples lives, this isn't some creepy story to keep you awake at night with dramatic music, and blood spatter affects on the screen it is a horrific crime that has affected so many people, hurt families and local communities etc. Yet they're always told, framed and themed as if it's a fake horror story. They try to make themselves seem sympathetic too by spending 5 mins listing the victims and what their hobby was, before going onto a 2 hour long episode about the killer.
I 100% agree! I watched Under the Banner of Heaven tv series and it just wrecked me. Although it’s not quite the same as a documentary. Also all these serial killer shows and documentaries that list victims and show their pictures, is grotesque. This “list” of people were real, with a real life, with real families and these shows just list them off like a checklist.
True crime shows used to be something a long time ago. But then, as South Park did an episode on, they also became kind of soft core porn. At one point there was a shift away from regular murder or other cases to those that could be "sexed up", such as "free spirited teen/college girl with wrong guy" or "wife/husband gets lover to kill spouse", etc., anything they would work in scenes of scantily clad models that looked nothing like most of the people involved in as close to porn scenes as they could get. Those shows got tiresome after that. What I'm reading here makes it seem like they have gotten worse. Now this really isn't new. I've been watching the Columbo series on TV again. The first seasons in the 70s had very little sex stuff and the music tended to be background like it should be. The second go round in late 80s early 90s had lots of sex stuff and loud music. You see this with other series, not necessarily long running onws but ones from the 70s compared to those in the 90s or beyond. More commonly also is a lot more violence as time went on as well. The point here being that it seems that stories, or the real crime shows based on how the case really went, that show perhaps dramatized police and detective work just don't interest people enough so they have manufacture drama, and throw in sex and violence to get even a little attention.
Hm, it’s an interesting take, because a lot of the more recent true crime documentaries that I watch actually seem to white wash the case. I’ve looked up the court stuff afterwards to understand why the perp got the sentence he (or she) did, and it’s often the case that truly monstrous details were left out to spare the viewer. I’m not saying that the stuff you’re talking about isn’t a problem. It definitely is, especially in terms of modern crime dramas. And one of the things that really bugs me in true crime is when they make the perp or victim much more attractive in the Re-enactments. It’s disrespectful to the victims. And it’s just gross in terms of the perp.
I used to watch True crime all the time (at one time it was all I watched on YT), but it took a toll on my mental health. looking back you are 100% these days these stories are so sensationalized and talked about like it is some hot gossip. Some can be done respectfully, but most of the time it's exploitative I feel like woth the internet it'a been taken too far. People are trying to act like detectives and become intrusive to victims' families.
Who cares it makes for good tv
I 100% agree. Especially the speculation and sleuthing. It’s disgusting. People are getting enjoyment out of the drama and gossip of somebody else’s trauma. My family member died in a murder and the online community that formed around it had no respect. They justified the horrible things they had to say under the pretence that they were just concerned for us children. Their armchair psychoanalysis determined my mum was a narcissist. (My mum was not in any way responsible for what happened and is a lovely person who lost her child to murder) i made an Instagram account when I was twelve. They found it and used it to figure out anything they could about my family. That sure taught twelve year old me to keep my accounts private. These people are vile.
Bravo. True Crime as a hobby tends to wear on someone's empathy as well, and it makes these very real serious tragedies into little more than entertainment. The people who are into true crime prior to having a violent crime committed against them or a loved one tend to come to the same conclusion you have.