I Have a Problem With True Crime (And You Should Too)

In the 1990s, violent video games started to become popular, which led many to believe that this kind of violent entertainment was going to turn kids into serial killers. But that never happened, or at least there isn’t direct proof at this time. But what has happened is that, alongside violent video games, crime shows like Criminal Minds, Law & Order, NCIS, and true crime podcasts have become increasingly popular since the early 2000s.

Cambridge University defines true crime as media “about real crimes that involve real people.” True crime podcasts are the third most popular genre of podcasts, and Criminal Minds has produced sixteen seasons since the pilot aired in 2005. The most popular video game of 2022 was Modern Warfare II. In the past two years, dozens of true crime shows have been released, including Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal (2023), Catching Killers (2022), Ted Bundy: American Boogeyman (2021), just to name a few.

As Americans’ screens have been infiltrated by gore and death—both fictional and very real—people have become alarmingly desensitized to violence. As the genre grew in popularity and emotional trauma flooded our television screens, we chose to ignore it, as a means to cope. As a society, we tend to glamorize trauma. There’s a big push to be different, to stand out; even to be “ruined” so we can feel like we deserve to be a victim. This mentality has created a complex known as the “missing-white-woman syndrome,” which refers to a fascination with white women going missing and how the media focuses their stories more than any other victims. Think of Gabby Petito, Elizabeth Smart, Natalee Holloway, Samantha Runnion—the list goes on. Not only does the media fixate on missing white women (think about the special episodes of Inside Edition or limited series on Oxygen like The Disappearance of Susan Cox Powell), but they disproportionately ignore missing cases of women of color.

A strange consequence of this is an obsession with being a victim; people all over the internet have started investing in In Case I Go Missing books, which they fill with their own DNA and handwriting samples. What originally started as a protective measure has turned into a sensationalized piece of media and a trend. Posting things like, “adding new hair to my In Case I Go Missing Book! Tag along!” people are profiting off of others’ misfortunes in new ways we have never seen before, and the consumption of this content is only growing. 13 percent of Americans said true crime was their favorite genre of media, in a poll conducted by YouGov in 2022.

The question is: is true crime informative or exploitation? Occasionally, siblings or parents of missing people have asked the public to help solve the mystery. But that’s a very small fraction of those participating in true crime. Most creators involved in this practice find the “juiciest” stories or cases they find the “weirdest” and make multi-part TikToks or entire shows dedicated to uncovering the case as a podcast, discussing theories surrounding disappearances or violent crimes and making money off of it. And all without the consent of the families of the victims. These people aren’t raising awareness of someone who has never been found, they are using their stories to profit themselves. It’s selfish, it’s exploitative, and it’s mean. People have become obsessed with these killers due to the abundance of content made about them.

After Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story came out in 2022, people were fetishizing being one of Dahmer’s victims, falling in love with a sadist, and making excuses for his actions. You can find any of this content with a quick search on TikTok. People are fans of him. Viewers have also become so enthralled by these mysteries that they form their own theories and unwarranted opinions about real people. In the case of the Idaho murders, which took place this past November, people made assumptions about a survivor, claiming she must have been involved since she wasn’t able to save her four friends.

This poor girl, who was dealing with the death of her closest friends, was being accused by people who do nothing but sit behind a screen all day with the protection of a username. Press releases and updates regarding cases should be delivered by news outlets, not some random @ on your Instagram explore page. @themrmanhattan on Twitter has posted a series of edits asking people questions like, “Should Kohberger get the death penalty?” while pictures of the victims dance across the screen to a popular audio. Other people, who have no relation to the victims, have written obituaries and eulogies as if they were close to them. @cofield_andrea tweeted, “I know I’m not the only one just sitting here waiting for the Idaho murders to heat up!!!!” All yearning for new developments to make the case more interesting, yearning to make someone else’s horrific death interesting.

All social media platforms are currently filled with horrendous content about cases like the Idaho murders with users who feel too comfortable speaking their unwarranted thoughts about them. This isn’t a limited HBO series finale or a book release. These are real people with thoughts, feelings, families, friends, habits, goals, and wishes, and we need to remind ourselves of their humaneness. We need to remind ourselves of the difference between fiction and real life and understand this is not something to glorify or sensationalize, it’s something we need to respect and be saddened by, not entertained.

There’s a fine line between investigative journalism and creating a spectacle of someone’s death or disappearance. And that line is often public involvement. The way social media is used to create cult-like engagement surrounding particularly gruesome cases fosters a feeling of personal investment among consumers as if they are now real detectives who believe they have some involvement in the solving of the crime. This is not a board game, this is not a fictional TV show, and this is not a puzzle you have to solve. These are real people’s lives you are theorizing about, with just a Twitter username separating you from reality. This is real life, and often the worst part of it for the victims and their families.

Your MagazineMay 9, 2023