Content warning: this article contains references to homicide and gender-based violence. If you are affected by any of the issues raised in this article, do ensure that you reach out to a staff member whom you trust or a free helpline service such as the Samaritans
For as long as we can remember, humans have held a grim fascination for the gory, the gruesome and the grisly – and stories about this have long since enchanted us, whether the local gossip around the latest public execution in the 14th centuries, to the world’s most famous unsolved serial killer Jack the Ripper, to the excellent entertainment that is Buzzfeed Unsolved. But why do humans hold this illogical desire to hear the crimes about our fellow man? And why, in the last half decade has it exploded, enjoying previously unseen popularity?
On the surface it may appear baffling as to why humans enjoy true crime, but in reality, it’s quite simple – these mysteries appeal to a human’s innate curiosity. They are the real-life stories which we can’t help but engage with, clues piecing together to an ultimate conclusion, and most attractively a simple positive outcome. It allows us a chance to be ‘armchair detectives’, cheerfully speculating our own theories, all from the safe distance of a screen. Or even a sense of catharsis – allowing us to entertain the violent or darker fantasies we hide from the world, and experience them in a safe, contained environment.
However, true crime has shown to have a much darker role in the lives of women. Not a story to lose yourself in, but as a survival guide. Statistics show that women fear crime far more than men. Women, on average hold a much greater fear of crime than males, not surprising considering the ever-rising rape and kidnapping reports that grip the media. Adult women consume far more true crime documentaries, podcasts and novels than any other demographic. Perhaps consciously, or subconsciously, they are far more drawn to true crime as knowing the intricacies may provide a form of chilling comfort, hoping to prevent similar events appearing to themselves as the majority of true crime skew towards reporting violent crimes against women.
So how has true crime blown up in the last six years? True crime has always been consumed eagerly by the public, beginning in the 16th and 17th centuries when pamphlets began to detail violent crimes and witchcraft investigations. However, these were not accessible to the majority of the population as the leaflets were often written in dramatized ballad form, relying heavily on perceived ‘divine justice;’ and most of the population remained illiterate. It wasn’t until the 19th century that true crime really begin its rise to fame, when a centralised police force was officially created in the 1820s, whilst across the seas in France, an ex-detective Francis Vidcoq wrote his memoirs, triggering the onslaught of murder mystery fiction that dominated the 18th century, including the adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson. The 19th century did away with the old ‘divine justice’ rhetoric, relying on new technologies of forensic science and human intelligence.
In the early 2000s, true crime documentaries became one of the most profitable, rapidly growing genres of television, and a dramatic increase of books published became focussed on true crime. They were easy to make and provided a quick, simple profit. They focussed primarily on sensationalist crime, like serial killers, which appealed greatly to the general public. It can also be argued that true crime also was responsible for the increased popularity of podcasts. Serial, hosted by Sarah Koenig, became a cultural phenomenon, as she investigated the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee (fitting most of the tropes now become synonymous with the genre – a young woman killed brutally by her boyfriend). By 2018 it became the most downloaded podcast ever, encouraging many more to follow in her footsteps, snowballing into a massive industry. 200 different true crime podcasts have been launched in the last six years, and that number is only growing as time passes.
Great, we think – a whole new form of quick, simple entertainment, able to be produced and made by pretty much anyone with the right research and facts. Too good to be true, right?
True crime focuses exclusively on the most horrific, bloodthirsty of crimes, when really homicides account for under 20% of crimes committed and serial killers are extremely rare. However, some psychologists have noted that overexposure to sensationalised dramatic narratives can begin to alter some of our perceptions of reality, increasing levels of anxiety. An overconsumption of true crime has even shown to trigger our sympathetic nervous system triggering a fight or flight response, and an increase in stress hormones. In extreme cases this can even lead to health problems such as depression, chronic anxiety or decreased immune response. True crime’s increased popularity also came at the same time as the Covid pandemic, where mental health was already suffering due to the high stress news and media we were exposed to. To recap, true crime can increase mental health issues, where mental health has already decreased overwhelmingly in the two years.
True crime, along with access to the internet, has also increased people’s desire to ‘armchair detect’ online. A famous case of this phenomenon occurred in late 2021 in the USA in response to the Gabby Petito homicide. Gabby Petito was a nutritionist killed by her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie, on a road-trip around the states. Gabby was reported missing in September after not being heard from since August. Both Petito and Laundrie had a high social media following where they encouraged a healthy lifestyle. Due to an increase in true crime’s popularity and two pieces of evidence in the investigation coming from TikTok, the case attracted mass interest online, causing mixed consequences. Incredibly, the large-scale speculation online lead to the discovery of six other missing persons. However, the speculation around Laundrie’s guilt and surrounding theories created many insensitive, aggressive, and overly sensationalised posts around these sensitive topics, often directed at Laundrie’s parents. In mid-October, Brian Laundrie comitted suicide, before being convicted a month later generating even more insensitive posts.
I love a good murder mystery as much as the next person, and I have no doubt the true crime industry will continue to grow in the next decade. However, at its heart it remains a highly problematic genre, that almost exclusively focuses on white, female victims. Whilst Gabby Petito’s case attracted mass speculation online, there was almost no mention of the 710 indigenous people who also went missing that same year. True crime remains a guilty pleasure, but the real tragedies at the heart of cases often get lost in the drama.
