Since releasing my docuseries “Convicting a Murderer,” one question I have been asked is, when did I become interested in true crime? While I have always liked true crime stories, this docuseries is about more than just crime. It’s about why society turns villains into heroes, how the media manipulates stories, and how lies become viewed as truth on a grand scale. When I began my political journey, I was fascinated by the concerted effort of culture, mainstream media, and school systems all working together on one thing: creating minds. Once I realized the extent to which I had been brainwashed, I wanted to know how it had happened in the first place. How had I become brainwashed by their efforts? I have been examining how this is possible ever since — and enlarging that examination to the entire world.
Psychosis is a mental illness in which someone loses contact with reality. Mass psychosis is when a major part of society follows some identified leaders’ directives, guiding in one direction or another, regardless of what any data shows. Mass psychosis has plagued society throughout history, but as I have lived through some, all have been intriguing to me. COVID, for example, was an occurrence of mass psychosis. “Experts” convinced people that everyone was dying, and we were facing another bubonic plague. It was effective — and that fascinates me. I was interested in the mass psychosis that took place during Black Lives Matter, which is why “The Greatest Lie Ever Sold” was my first project with The Daily Wire. I wanted to explore how people became convinced that George Floyd was not just a person who died an unfortunate death but was, in fact, a hero. How did people get to the point they were being baptized at the location of his death? How did that happen?
When I paired my love of studying psychology with my interest in this period of heightened propaganda and a cultural battle for minds, I naturally ended up focusing on the mainstream media. They are the most potent form of brainwashing in existence today — and they are everywhere, fighting for minds. Obviously then, I was interested in Netflix’s docuseries “Making a Murderer.” When it came out, it was incredibly successful. People were not just convinced that Steven Avery was not guilty, they formed what can only be described as a cult — a Steven Avery cult. In later episodes of “Convicting a Murderer,” we see that people wanted to marry him; they cried for him. But the first four episodes show what kind of man Avery was his entire lifetime. He was nothing short of a monster. How are we turning villains into heroes — and why?
When the filmmakers of “Making a Murderer” started their project, they probably set out just to cover the story. The man was in prison for 12 years for a crime he didn’t commit. So to be exonerated and murder someone two years later? It is quite a story. But it’s a story these two female filmmakers ended up creating with an angle. They said they didn’t have an angle, but they did. They told Avery they believed him, and they were forthcoming with the view they had for the film. But Steven Avery is a monster. And to pretend you are agnostic or objective is just dishonest.
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Regardless of their original intent, what these two documentary-makers had was a perfect media firestorm. There was an anti-police sentiment already building in the country, so they made their series which presents plausibility that this person was being set up by police in this glorious $36 million lawsuit. The reason the media picked up “Making a Murderer” is not because they cared about Avery’s victim, Teresa Halbach, or Steven Avery. The reason they picked it up is because the media knew they could extract a certain narrative they were interested in perpetuating at that time, which was that police are rotten and should be protested because they aren’t only after just black men but they are after white men too. So Avery became their icon.
Here I was again wondering how the human mind can bend so outlandishly to believe lies as truth. There were such obvious answers people refused to accept: the last place Halbach was seen, her discomfort around Avery, her car outside his lot, and the number of times he changed his story. This was another example of people wanting to believe an anti-hero narrative, which we not only see in real life but also in fantasy narratives. We now have a story behind the Joker so we will feel sympathy for him because of his background. We know Maleficent’s history so we sympathize with her character who has a heart. We are in a time when we are trying to turn villains into heroes. It’s everywhere. But some people do not need to be unearthed to have their legacy cleaned up.
We are also in a period of excuses. There is no accountability. I blame a lot of this on what I call new-age therapy. I speak out against the younger generation of psychologists and psychiatrists who refuse to give people the tools they need to correct their lives and, instead, give them excuses: “You did a bad thing? Let’s talk about your childhood and figure out what happened because it’s not really your fault.” In “old” therapy, psychologists and psychiatrists helped people get their lives together. But not now. This has spread to a nationwide issue, and culture reinforces the “excuse” sentiment. When George Floyd died, BLM raced into Target, stole flat screen televisions, and the CEO of Target’s response was, “We understand.” The CEO of a major corporation was evidently teaching that if you have a feeling and you’re upset, you are authorized to become a criminal.
A big part of the problem at large is that some of these people are spiritually void, and they are looking to fill that void with something, with anything. It is impossible not to seek some kind of spiritualism, so when that spiritualism is misplaced, situations can get very scary, very fast. That is part of what we see in “Convicting a Murderer.” Some people who heard Avery’s story were so overtaken by his story that they were putting Avery in the place of the void they felt.
There are huge facts coming out in future episodes. It was an interesting experience to unpack the evidence that was left out of “Making a Murderer” in order to soften his past crimes. The Truther community is going to have a difficult time when these episodes air because there is just no way to defend him when everything is revealed.