Do you watch True Crime documentaries and fear that there is something wrong with you? Like, why can’t you look away from the gore of the Idaho Four murder case? Is it immoral to help people to profit off of the pain and suffering of other people? Sometimes, it seems, that hearing about tragedy is unavoidable, but why do we have such a fascination with death and crime?
One study at UNC Chapel Hill suggests that humans exhibit a natural fascination with the motivation of criminals, that we are invested in the successes and failures of the justice system and desire to watch it in real time. One researcher compares it to haunted houses, suggesting that we simply enjoy escapism and entertainment, but others think there’s something more.
This article from Boston University suggests that some develop parasocial relationships with survivors or perpetrators, meaning they develop “nonreciprocal socio-emotional connections” with the victims or the culprits in the case. These relationships can encourage people to become amateur sleuths as a means of inserting themselves into a case. While potentially well-intentioned, this can result in poor mental health, begging the question of the validity of true crime as a market on social media.
This study found that women report being more interested in true crime than their male counterparts, and this isn’t accidental. Reportedly, true crime is marketed towards women and can emphasize feelings of unease or victimhood. This study reinforced the idea that too much consumption can be bad for mental health, citing that fear of crime itself was a motivator to watch more true crime documentaries.
Another journal from Villanova University published a study which found that watching true crime is a product of “unconscious motives and evolutionary instincts.” The author continues that “[g]ender disparities underscore women as primary consumers, motivated by fear, vigilance, education, and empowerment.” All of these studies encourage the discussion — should we be watching true crime?
On some level, we cannot avoid it. This fascinating social media post eloquently outlines humans’ need for control, our obsession with the “unusual,” and offers a multi-cultural view of our common fixation on death. The author compares our interest in true crime with horror, and how trauma is frequently used as a form of entertainment.
Finally, there are many authors who write op-eds about the ethics of crime. This article describes why the recent Jeffrey Dahmer series was insensitive, which is in agreement with this op-ed. The University of Oregon provided a short opinion piece, interviewing one professor of ethics who asserted that it is our approach to true crime that complicates things, not the inherent curiosity about death.
Now, this is where I enter. As someone who listened to the Ted Bundy Tapes while cleaning my room, I feel somewhat qualified to discuss the human fascination with the morbid and macabre. To begin, humans have grappled with the reality of death since the beginning of time, a concept exemplified by Greek tragedy, various cultural funerary masks, and ritualistic burial sites.
Frankenstein is an example with the female fascination with death — Mary Shelley was a famously bizarre person (including losing her virginity on her mother’s grave and keeping her dead husband’s heart in her desk), but she wrote about the human desire to escape death. Instead of trying to create life, Doctor Frankenstein wants to cheat death — demonstrating one example of human’s fixation with the impermanence of life. Shelley ends her story with a character who is forced to live forever, a tragic and lonely “gift.”
There are many examples of popular culture overlapping with death and crime. The Zodiac movie starring Robert Downey Junior and Mark Ruffalo, numerous books and movies written about Charles Manson and Sharon Tate, Zac Efron as Ted Bundy, Evan Peters and Ross Lynch as Jeffrey Dahmer, the Menendez brothers documentary and TV show, even the Epstein files are all examples of the commodification of crime and suffering. There are re-imaginations of Jack the Ripper (including as Edgar Degas?), romanticizations of Bonnie and Clyde, a nursery rhyme about Lizzie Borden, and an homage to D.B. Cooper in Prison Break.
Do podcasts such as Crime Junkie, Murder with my Husband, My Favorite Murder, RottenMango, or Buzzfeed Unsolved profit off of death in a way more unfair to the victim’s family than the documentaries that Netflix and Hulu put out about Amanda Knox, Gabby Petito, Ruby Franke, or Ted Kaczynski? Do we have to feel guilty watching the series on Madelaine McCann, Jon-Benet Ramsey, or Elizabeth Smart? Should we refer to the Black Dahlia by her legal name, Elizabeth Short? Should Criminal Minds have avoided making an episode that mimicked WACO? Should the FBI take down its “Famous Cases” tab on the government website?
The truth is, death is sad. Crime is scary. There are things that we will never have answers to. Your curiosity, fascination, and passive observation is not immoral. It’s human. While I cannot endorse watching Elliot Rodger’s manifesto or investigating the Junko Furata case, no one should fault you for it either. Whether you find comfort in the escapism or you are simply intrigued by the legal process, there is no shame in watching, as long as the platform does not actively punish the victims or benefit the perpetrators. We are all predisposed to find death enticing. Most of it is harmless, although there are studies that definitely discourage you from conducting your own investigation (such as the case series Don’t F*ck with Cats).
Life proves challenging enough to navigate, even without an ethical discussion of what podcasts you consume and which streaming services you subscribe to. When trying to evaluate whether or not you should indulge yourself, ask 3 questions:
1) What is the tone of the documentary or adaptation? Does it seem respectful of those who suffered?
2) Who is being interviewed or portrayed? As is the case with the Turpin children on the Diane Sawyer show, some people may want their story platformed.
3) Will this benefit my mental health or cause harm? There might be some things you are better off not knowing.
If you’d like to learn more, this comprehensive study about the True Crime Communities’ Fascination with Murder goes very in-depth on the fixation with Columbine. I highly recommend reading!