By Emily Rawle (she/her)

CW: mentions of domestic and sexual violence, violence against women, murder, hate crimes, racial crimes, white privilege

Why I Watch True Crime Content:

I love True Crime. I'll watch hour-long analyses of killers and sit through footage of police interrogations, all to watch the pieces come together. I treat it as a study of people who have done terrible things and why they do so, even if there is no answer.

I confess my love for this genre with a tinge of guilt, because while the stories are interesting, and even entertaining, the victims themselves are not fictional. By nature, True Crime profits off the trauma of victims. The genre is a stark reminder of how often, and how easily, people can become victims, and shows us the cruelty of reality, especially in a patriarchal and modern society.

Interestingly, the observable majority of creators and consumers are those who are most likely to have been victims to these crimes: women, and femme-presenting people. Why is that? Do we consume so much True Crime because of a collective morbid curiosity, or are we taking notes to avoid becoming victims ourselves?

Rise of True Crime

We are consuming more True Crime than ever: from Netflix docuseries, to podcasts, and even YouTube channels. This means more discussions around famous True Crime cases and unsolved mysteries, which has led to more meaningful portrayals of previously unheard voices.

A podcast recording studio. Source: Unsplash

As a genre, True Crime has undergone massive growth during recent years. The documentary genre, which includes True Crime, has become the “fastest-growing segment of the streaming industry, with the number of series growing 63 percent between January 2018 and March 2021” (The Ringer, 2021).

Netflix, especially, has contributed to this growth, with films such as “Making a Murderer”, “I am a Killer”, and “Tiger King” (yes, the exploits of Joe Exotic count as True Crime). These series stunned critics and experts with the intensity they reached public fanfare.

This growth is replicated on platforms like YouTube, where the series Buzzfeed Unsolved brought the Buzzfeed channel tens of millions of fans. This can also be seen with independent creators like Bailey Serian, who grew a following through her series “Murder, Mystery, Makeup Monday”, where she recalls True Crime cases while applying makeup. Many of Serian’s over six million subscribers say that she manages to create content that makes True Crime feel like having a chat with a friend. Another example is Kendall Rae, who is well respected for how she gets permission from and includes families of victims in her content.

However, while most True Crime content remains in the realm of respect, there is always a risk of taking things too far for the sake of creating entertaining content. Using editing methods such as dramatic music, exploitative descriptions, dehumanising victims, and highlighting the hunting prowess of the killer, runs the risk of rewarding the killer's infamy rather than showing the horror of the victim’s experience. There’s also concern about the impact on social attitudes and acceptance of violence, when male killers and their motivations are romanticised.

A common argument against True Crime content is how it can desensitise people and make them less sympathetic when horrors happen around them. Because these shows are a way for people to consume difficult experiences from a distance, it would be too hard to take every story at their real emotional weight. There are also wider social consequences, like the term: missing white woman syndrome. This is when the experiences of POC victims are overshadowed by stories about white women in the media and community. The most recent example of this is the horrible experience of Gabby Petito, who had been coined as “America’s Daughter” when she went missing in 2021, despite the fact that there are many others who are missing under similar circumstances that the public doesn’t even know about. Every victim deserves attention, concern, and effort, but media bias makes it difficult for all voices to be heard when one case trumps all others, and ignores crimes that regularly impact POC communities (TDFP, 2021). However, True Crime content has generated more social awareness around criminal justice and also a yearning within audiences to know more about crime causation (Yardley et al, 2019).

True Crime Fandom Taken Too Far

Like in any fandom, there are those who take it too far, and True Crime is no different. Because True Crime runs the risk of glamourising, or worst-case sexualising, criminals and their atrocities, this can cause people to excuse a criminal’s actions, or even become fans of them. This manifests in artwork, fanfiction, and mechanise. It’s worrying to see a parasocial relationship between subject and consumer be taken so far, even more so when it’s about a misogynist who committed terrible crimes.

Despite knowing what serial killers do, women, in particular, have had a tendency to become infatuated with them. The most famous case of this is of course, Ted Bundy. In the 1970s, he confessed to raping and murdering up to 30 women, because he had to satisfy an “urge”.

It’s well known that Ted Bundy relied on his unsuspecting and conventional appearance to disarm his victims and take advantage of them. The media solidified this persona by describing him as “overly handsome and charming”. It has been suggested that the media's portrayal of Bundy inspired and fuelled admirers, who saw him as the “perfect” boyfriend. During Bundy’s multiple trials, groups of women were recorded standing outside the courthouse to show their support for him, whether they believed he was guilty or not. Shockingly, some purposefully accessorised themselves to resemble Bundy’s victims, who all shared similar aesthetics to his girlfriend during the spree, Elizabeth Kendall (Oxygen True Crime, 2018).

When looking at the social climate of a time period where so many serial killers were in the media, seeing young women fawn over a man who would have considered killing them is concerning. Sadly, this parasocial phenomenon is still apparent in the cultural reaction to post 2000’s True Crime. In 2004, in a small, Californian university town, Elliot Rodgers killed six people before shooting himself. However, similarly to Ted Bundy, after a picture of Elliot Rodgers and his story spread, some took the man behind a terrible event and formed a fandom.

However, the idea of fandom around Elliot Rodgers takes a darker turn when we learn that he is the poster-child for the modern day Incel. An Incel is someone who identifies as “involuntary celibate”, and are often described as men who hold extremely toxic views of women because of a “lack of sexual success” (more sources are below if you wish to know more).

Before Elliot Rodgers committed the shooting, he wrote a manifesto about his life and explained his hatred of women. According to him, the shooting was “retribution against women”, and in a video he made prior he stated: “I don’t know why you girls are not attracted to me, but I will punish you all for it.”

Funnily enough, when reading the manifesto, it’s not hard to figure out why women weren’t attracted to him: he was a narcissist who saw any woman in his life as a sexual-object. But according to Rodgers, he was perfect and women were wrong for not choosing him. To a feminist, Elliot Rodgers is infuriating. Even though the majority of “fans” are other Incels he inspired, some are women who genuinely formed crushes on him, despite his raging misogyny.

Overall, I believe what drives the romantic fantasies of women with male serial-killers, is the storyline where she believes she could have “fixed him” and prevented the crimes, or could’ve been the exception to their misogyny. This imagination and internalised sexism could help explain the romantic infatuation of men like Ted Bundy and Elliot Rodgers.

Parasocial relationships in the media we consume is not a new phenomenon, and while fandom is generally harmless, idolising misogynists creates environments where their harmful ways of thinking can spread.

Is True Crime Content Ethical From a Feminist Perspective?

When looking through True Crime content, there are many things that instinctually frighten viewers, as most cases involve abuse, which can tap into many fears and traumas.

The majority of serial killers who inspire this content are men who exclusively target women. It should also be acknowledged that many of these crimes have also intersected with LGBTQIA+ and racial hate crimes. The details of every case are inherently traumatic and reflect deeper systemic issues, so why are they attractive to an audience, particularly when that audience is more likely to relate to the victim?

A study by the University of Illinois suggests that women, in particular, subconsciously pick up on information when listening to a True Crime story. Whether a woman listener intends to or not, she learns from the story and takes note of what sort of person committed the crime and how the victim got away (or not). In patriarchal societies, where women are often victims of domestic and other violence, having education about how real the threat of violence is can help keep them safe, and can teach them to trust their gut (INB, 2010). This could be so valuable in a culture that undermines women or calls them “dramatic” for exiting situations because of instinct or not trusting the person they’re with completely. True Crime proves that victims have often done nothing to deserve what happened to them, and how trusting one's gut could be a life-saver.

For True Crime content to be “ethical”, it should respect the victims' identities. There have been countless instances of families who, after the stories of their loved ones hit mass popularity, have stated they received harassment from people who had watched the content (Time, 2020). In this way, the contextual tone used is also very important, especially when a community is still healing.

While I don’t agree with sensitive topics being censored, creators should be held accountable when content comes across as glorifying or sexualising crimes, or as dismissing of victim's experiences.

Content can, and should, accurately depict an event without glorifying the perpetrator and the injustices, and without reducing the victim's experience. “Ethical” True Crime does not sensationalise the killer, and instead focuses on the educational and emotional value the story can provide to the community.

Conclusion

You aren’t a bad person if you like True Crime content. There are factors that are exploitative, but tearing down an entire genre isn’t going to help, especially when the subject can be a learning resource and protect victims in the future.

Feminist publications, like One Woman Project, strive to provide a platform for people who couldn’t speak before: women, LGBTQIA+ members, People of Colour, minority communities, victims of violence, and many more. The True Crime industry can offer things that can aide this mission: a learning device to prevent violence, a means for women to create revenue or create community, and can give voices to those who were silenced by crime.

References

True Crime:

Why are we so obsessed with true crime? By the University of Derby
https://www.derby.ac.uk/magazine/issue-11/why-are-we-so-obsessed-with-true-crime/

The Ringer, The Bloody Bubble, by Justin Sayles (2021)
https://www.theringer.com/tv/2021/7/9/22567381/true-crime-documentaries-boom-bubble-netflix-hbo

Women and True Crime:

Vicary, A.M. and Fraley, R.C., 2010. Captured by true crime: Why are women drawn to tales of rape, murder, and serial killers?. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 1(1), pp.81-86.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1948550609355486

Women, more than men, choose true crime over other violent nonfiction (2010)
https://news.illinois.edu/view/6367/205718

This is why women are obsessed with True Crime stories, by Megha Sharma (2020) https://www.vogue.in/culture-and-living/content/why-are-women-obsessed-with-true-crime-stories
Popularity of True Crime shows how the public is desensitized, not enough empathy for victims
https://dailyfreepress.com/2021/09/30/editorial-popularity-of-true-crime-shows-how-the-public-is-desensitized-not-enough-empathy-for-victims/

The Romanticization of Violent Male Offenders: How Trauma and Internalized Sexism Can Explain Women's Fascination with Serial Killers
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1164&context=jj_etds
The Messed up Truth about Ted Bundy’s Fangirls, by Jennifer Deutschman (2022)
https://www.grunge.com/729744/the-messed-up-truth-about-ted-bundys-fangirls/

The Twisted 'Groupies' Who Loved Serial Killer Ted Bundy (2018)

https://www.oxygen.com/snapped/crime-time/groupies-loved-serial-killer-ted-bundy

'Real People Keep Getting Re-traumatized.' The Human Cost of Binge-Watching True Crime Series (2020)

https://time.com/5825475/true-crime-victim-families/

Is our growing obsession with true crime a problem? (2019)

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47474996

Men Who Hate Women: When a Mass Murderer Has a Cult Following (2018)

https://www.thecut.com/2018/04/incel-meaning-rebellion-alex-minassian-elliot-rodger-reddit.html

Learn more about incels: