Why are we so fascinated with the latest murder mystery on Netflix?
I don’t know about you, but my Netflix recommendations are constantly bombarded with the latest true crime documentary. Any popular murder or trial case has most likely been featured in a docuseries on Netflix or Hulu, and we even see multiple shows about the same events being produced constantly. I will admit, I am a sucker for these kinds of shows and I know so many other people are as well. It does make me wonder, though, why there has been a surge in popularity in true crime media, and what drives our fascination with the spine-chilling and dreadful.
One reason that comes to mind is our morbid curiosity, or our interest in unpleasant things, especially death. Researchers have long reassured us that this is a common psychological trait, that we are simply fascinated with evil and crime. Humans are curious beings in the first place, and these true crime cases are often so new and strange that we can’t look away because of how fascinated we are by people’s evil nature. As criminology professor Scott Bonn explains, we are tantalized by true crime the same way we view traffic accidents, train wrecks or natural disasters. Us humans have a general fixation on violence and calamity that true crime shows often provide.
We are also instinctively drawn to understanding things that we don’t understand, and trying to figure out the problem-solving element of any true crime show. We are sucked into the who, what, where, when and why of the murder, delving deeper into the theories about a killer’s motivations and playing armchair detective. We want to figure out what drove people to extremes, especially when we ourselves can’t imagine actually committing murder. We are sucked in by both the satisfaction when a killer is caught, and the dissatisfaction when a case remains open today. There is this adrenaline rush of trying to see what’s going to happen next which the suspense and excitement of a true crime show can provide us.
Perhaps we also feel a need to be prepared, especially if we can relate to the victims. This is a reason why there tend to be more female fans of true crime, simply because usually the victims are women as well. Learning about the murders also means learning about the ways we can prevent ourselves from being murdered. This allows us to evoke our fight or flight sense, and start questioning what we would do if confronted with a killer.
We can also blame our fascination on schadenfreude, which is pleasure derived from another person’s misfortune. While we’re not exactly saying we are happy someone got gruesomely murdered, there is a sense of relief that we are not the ones killed. Victims of these true crime shows are often regular people, and knowing that you could have been someone who fit the description of a killer’s victim makes you feel a tinge of solace that you are still alive.
Now here’s the real question: Should we be concerned about society’s obsession with true crime? Are we in danger of falling into a dark obsession with killers because of our love for true crime shows? Is our interest in true crime going to haunt us psychologically ten years in the future?
I think that there’s a fine line between fascination and obsession, and as long as your wall is not plastered with newspaper clippings, you’re not constantly talking about conspiracy theories of whodunit to your friends and families and you’re sleeping soundly at night without hugging a baseball bat, you’re totally fine. Too much of anything is never a good thing, so make sure you take breaks and consume happier media once in a while in between all the murders.