Americans are obsessed with true crime. “Crime Junkie” is still one of the biggest podcasts in the world. The Idaho murders documentary just hit number one on Netflix.
When I was growing up, true crime was my favorite genre. I would sit inside with my friends on hot summer days to watch the latest episodes of “SVU” and all things Olivia Benson. I’d be embarrassed to count up how many hours of my life I spent listening to true crime podcasts. Name one, and I’ve probably spent 10 hours of my life learning all about it.
But if you pause and think about it, the idea of saying, “I love true crime,” is actually bizarre. The real world is heavy enough without going out of our way to seek out even more darkness just for the sake of entertainment. Just a scroll through TikTok and I will see stories of girls talking about how someone stalked them or questioning if a weird encounter they had was a sign of human trafficking. Flip on local news, and the top stories will be last night’s shooting.
After listening to true crime podcasts and books almost daily during my early twenties, the concept of what I was really consuming dawned on me. How much is this affecting my health and how I see the world?
Considering the TV true crime demographic is 80% female, I know I’m far from the only one facing this dilemma. Psychology Today cites women’s need for understanding the murderers’ motives as a means of making them less scary, as a reason for our morbid curiosity. Experts also say we want to be more aware and informed if we are ever to find ourselves in a similar situation. It makes sense. Often, the girls who get out of bizarre scenarios cite their true crime obsession as a lifesaving tool.
The education component is indeed a useful tool for an otherwise senseless matter. I think some shows glamorize and monetize other people’s suffering for the sake of entertainment, while there are better options that seek to educate and inform rather than harp on every gory detail of a crime.
My biggest concern with our undying love for dark subject matter is how it seems to desensitize humans to real-life suffering and evil. It reminds me of the way people attribute video games to desensitization. Whats worse about true crime is it’s true crime. Real people’s lives.
Mix in our obsession with the internet’s need to comment on every single detail, and a crime will quickly turn into everyone’s next conspiracy theory on TikTok. Every viewer now needs to become the entertainer: sharing her insights into the possible perpetrators of the crime even when there is no evidence to suggest it.
Take the Idaho murder case, four students slain in their off-campus house. The now infamous house was also home to two young women who survived the horrors. Within hours of the details reaching social media, the innocent roommates became prime suspects in the eyes of TikTok sleuths. No decorum or empathy displayed toward real survivors of a real horror. In reporting on real-life evil, we partake in downright evil gossip ourselves.
The online activity around Charlie Kirk’s assassination follow eerily similar patterns as well. Just because the salacious content scratches the itch of a generation obsessed with true crime, that doesn’t make the content right, morally or factually.
When I took a step back from the true crime gossip, a striking question filled the void. Isn’t there anything better you can fill your brain with? The answer, of course, was yes. You become what you consume. If I’m consuming darkness, how do I plan to shine the light?
Now I ask myself, is this just gossip and gore? If so, I steer clear. And so far, the switch-up has done wonders for my health, the way I view the world, and the way I can still operate joyfully within it.
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