What’s Up With True Crime Being So Nonchalant?
I can’t lie; one of my favorite activities is queuing up a true crime podcast, putting on my noise-canceling headphones, and going on a long afternoon walk on a beautiful day. Something about this activity is calming to me. No matter how absurdly disturbing the audio coming through my headphones is, on the outside, it just looks like I am enjoying my leisurely walk while soaking up the sun.
As my walk wraps up and my favorite true crime podcast, “My Favorite Murder,” ends, I usually whip out my phone and text my friends, asking if they have listened to their latest drop so I have someone to talk about it with. Our conversations about each episode/gruesome event can become very nonchalant, given the severity of the events we had just listened to.
Often, after conversations like this, I don’t feel right. I think about how disturbing it is that the media casually portrays highly traumatic events, allowing their audience to address these events in the same way. The way that people in the media cover topics related to murder and other tragic events doesn’t always give the victims and their families the justice they deserve.
While many podcast hosts talk in an empathetic manner regarding the event they are covering, the consistent release of episodes and constant talk of traumatic events just normalizes crime, which then enables people to talk about true crime inappropriately.
A woman on YouTube uses her account to share true crime stories. While this may seem unproblematic, she also does her makeup while discussing these devastating events. She calls this bit “Murder Mystery and Makeup.” Many people now see this behavior as normal, and TikTok users are beginning to make similar videos of talking about true crime while putting on a full face of makeup.
Regarding the film industry, there has been a lot of backlash from directors hiring attractive actors to play serial killers. Zac Efron, Evan Peters, and Ross Lynch – all beautiful actors – played serial killers Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer. This casting leads people to say absurdities regarding their committed crimes, completely discrediting the victims.
Others raise the issue that these live-action films that depict real murders make it very difficult for victims and their families to heal from the tragic, horrific events that they have already lived through.
There was a day when gruesome news coverage aired on TV, and people turned it off or were too scared to even talk about it because of how taboo this subject was. Now, we see people making murder mystery makeup videos and exclaiming that they would let Ted Bundy hit them over the head with a brick just because an attractive actor played him in a movie.
While raising awareness for the terrible things people can do is extremely important, there is a right and wrong way to do it.
I know I am not alone in listening to or watching true crime and enjoying it. Whether I am watching “Dateline” with my mom, lying in bed watching “Criminal Minds,” or listening to “My Favorite Murder” on my walk to class, I am always in the mood to talk about true crime because it interests me. I don’t know why; it just does.
It may be because I am a young woman—a common target for many people who commit these crimes—who wants to know how to keep myself safe and out of bad situations. Or, it may be that true crime is becoming an increasingly popular topic to talk about, watch, and listen to. Either way, the discussion about true crime has drastically changed since the late 1900s and early 2000s.
The media is glamorizing murder, and while there is more coverage of crime than ever before, it needs to be taken more seriously than the ways that the media currently portrays these events.