Since the dawn of humanity, crime has been a part of our existence. Beginning with Abel and Cain and continuing through to modern-day, crime and tragedy unfortunately are present throughout the ages. We condemn the acts of violence, and the unnecessary loss of lives that occurs, leading to families losing their loved ones and living a life filled with pain.
Justice and punishment serve as a way to ensure that the guilty are caught and will do their time as families of the victim will now live in peace, knowing, case closed, right? Yes and no. While it seems that the victims’ families can rest knowing that the criminal is serving its time, the true crime community and the plethora of documentaries are keeping the wounds open, invading the privacy of the victims for entertainment purposes.
This phenomenon wasn’t dominant and wasn’t as exploitative as it is nowadays. Back then, when we talk about a crime, it’s more to understand the criminal’s motive and mind to try and prevent these patterns from happening again. In the 1960s and 70s when the FBI started criminal profiling, it was made to identify the serial killer’s characteristics and age in order to trim down the suspects and find the culprit quicker.
Today, when we talk about a crime, it feels sensationalized as the rise of podcasts, mukbang, and YouTubers are telling the tale of the crime as if it was an entertainment piece. What went wrong? Is our consumption of crime stories becoming exploitative? Or is it informative? When did we become desensitized to crime? In this article, we are going to do our best to tackle this subject, giving insights into this obsession with crimes and murderers
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The Transformation from Being Informative to Exploitative
Media that talk about crime, whether it happened in real life or based on works of fiction has been stable for as far as we can remember. From ‘Sherlock Holmes’, ‘Murder, She Wrote’, ‘Khalf el Aswar’, you name it. We have been fascinated with the idea of crime, and exploring the mindset of criminals that grab the nation’s attention. However, in the past couple of years, our interest in these genres has skyrocketed.
According to Parrot Analytics, from 2018 to 2021, the number of documentary series on streaming services grew 63%, and true crime was the largest segment of that.
Shows like ‘Dahmer’, ‘The Staircase’, and movies like ‘Ted Bundy's Tapes’, and ‘the girl in the picture’ are some of the popular media that has been released in the past couple of years that are focusing on crime.
Another wave of true crime media that took the internet by storm is the surrogacy of podcasts, and YouTubers who dive into the world of crime while doing their makeup e.g Bailey Sarian and Danielle Kirsty. While the intention of these people is to inform the audience about what happened, it seems a bit exploitative, especially the way they speak about it. Their way of talking about it can be seen as sensationalistic, making the real stories of actual victims like the hot gossip you hear.
Recently, people began to voice their criticisms on social media about the true crime content that is being produced, accusing creators of sensationalizing crime, underestimating the tragedy of situations, and monetizing their content for profit. For example, before YouTubers dive into their true crime series episode, they begin selling an ad from one of their sponsors.
People are wondering if these creators are really interested in educating their audiences about these crimes and how we can detect an abusive pattern or if they are interested in the money and fame these creators will get from the exposure. However, if we are being honest with ourselves, we think there are two to tango.
The Increasing Demand for True Crime Content from Viewers
Two years ago, Saturday Night Live made a sketch called “Murder Show.” A funny music video in which they sing about how people come to love watching true crime shows and documentaries while doing day-to-day things. It’s a mockery of how people became desensitized to the horror of crime, as they listen to these podcasts and watch these shows while taking out the trash or doing the dishes.
This behavior has become so normalized that we never think that these stories are real, that it could happen to anyone. So does this mean we should stop watching these shows? Should we ban this type of genre?
A Change in the Air and a Brighter Side Await?
This trend is unfortunately here to stay, yet we can definitely call out the creators who are exploiting these stories like it’s a money-making machine.
There are multiple YouTubers that actually respect the families of the victims and dive deep into making content that’s informative, well-researched, and actually helps both viewers and victims’ families.
Dreading and Kendall Ray for example. Their channels on YouTube are highly respectable, they help in making viewers reach out to victim’s families if they have a gofundme or are in need of support, as they always put a plugin to the families social’s and reach out to people in order to figure out how to be helpful and resourceful, that includes doing online fundraisers and donating profits they earned to the victim’s families.
We need to reach out to our human side and remember that these victims are not fiction.
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