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"True Crime" is Rotting Our Brains


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I couldn't agree more - I UTTERLY DESPISE the so-called "True Crime" genre with a deep-seated loathing and contempt.

 

I simply cannot comprehend the desire to partake in this form of "entertainment", especially when it comes to serial killers who are simultaneously depraved and dull.

 

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I would sooner get stabbed again than have someone make a podcast about me

 

 

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Crime stories are a fundamentally conservative way of looking at the world. Republicans bleat about high crime rates in lawless liberal cities because someone stole a toothbrush from a CVS. Suburban crime paranoia is as old as the suburbs themselves — hell, it’s why they exist to begin with. The reactionary basis of true crime is how you end up with ostensibly liberal podcast hosts defending the death penalty and arguing against double jeopardy protections. It’s easy and correct to condemn Fox News for increasing our grandparents’ blood pressure, keeping them in a perpetual state of fear about roving gangs of MS-13 coming to their gated communities, but we should also consider that other demographics might be susceptible to fear-stoking propaganda. How can we listen to story after story of women being abducted or murdered and expect it to not have an effect on our psyche? A study conducted by the University of Pennsylvania found that fear of crime and violence on television have both increased over time, despite crime rates declining, and that women reported more fear of crime on surveys than men. True crime runs on heightened emotion and fear, convincing people, and especially women, that every stranger is a possible murderer. I see women on Twitter questioning whether it’s safe to let a plumber into their house, or instructing others to rip out strands of hair to leave in cabs for DNA evidence in case the driver murders you. These are not sensible reactions, they are the thoughts of someone who has been deeply traumatized. So many true crime shows advise women to trust their instincts, but how can we trust instincts that have been hijacked by induced anxiety?

 

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How's this for backward, twisted, true crime shit? Netflix has a true crime series called Don't Fuck With Cats about how a bunch of Internet people obsessed with true crime stories both help catch a killer while also causing him to escalate, in part, due to the attention he was getting from those same people.

 

 

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This has actually become a sort of source of friction between my girlfriend and I. I understand the motivation since she's in med school going for psychiatry and all I guess but close to all she's interested in entertainment-wise are Netflix Shockumentaries, like that fucking awful story about gym bro murdering his wife and kids, and YouTubers dissecting police interrogations (this is apparently a popular thing I was gladly not aware of). I kind of watched some of it with her here and there at first but man, it says a lot when even I think this shit is tasteless, depressing and creepy. It actually happened last week that we ended up getting into a somewhat big argument about all this because that Netflix doc I mentioned earlier was the breaking point for me. 

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7 hours ago, gamer.tv said:

So long as Mindhunter isn’t part of that grouping I’m fine with the take.

 

Even though I'm not a fan of the subject matter, I don't consider Mindhunters to be part of the "true crime" genre.

 

Though I will say that -- based on the subjects of the films that he chooses to direct -- it really does appear that David Fincher has some...issues :p

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4 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

Good God - you have GOT to be freakin' kidding me?!?!

There are several seemingly very successful channels that do analysis of full police interrogation room footage and shit. It's supposed to be in service of analyzing the psychology but my argument with my girlfriend was partially that this seems like bullshit circus freak style entertainment with some questionable source giving their 'expert' opinion once every shocking twenty minutes. Maybe there is some merit I just don't get, she's way smarter than me really, but it looks like exploitative, tasteless garbage to me. 

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6 minutes ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

Not gonna lie, I’ve liked a lot of true crime stuff in the past and still do, but seems like a lot of Netflix stuff is more designed to be shocking and salacious and I just find that in bad taste. 
 

I did find The Innocence Files to be really well done, though. If anyone has watched that. 

 

The Innocence Files is probably best categorized within the "documentary" genre rather than the "true crime" genre.

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1 minute ago, Bloodporne said:

There are several seemingly very successful channels that do analysis of full police interrogation room footage and shit. It's supposed to be in service of analyzing the psychology but my argument with my girlfriend was partially that this seems like bullshit circus freak style entertainment with some questionable source giving their 'expert' opinion once every shocking twenty minutes. Maybe there is some merit I just don't get, she's way smarter than me really, but it looks like exploitative, tasteless garbage to me. 

 

Police interrogations are about as far from actual psychology as you can possibly get.  I see absolutely zero reason for anyone who is even remotely involved in the psychological profession to waste a minute of their time on it.

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3 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

Police interrogations are about as far from actual psychology as you can possibly get.  I see absolutely zero reason for anyone who is even remotely involved in the psychological profession to waste a minute of their time on it.

Yeah, like I said, this whole topic rubs me the wrong way and that argument between her and I had been simmering in me for a while. It feels like the equivalent of not being able to get off to regular porn and having to escalate shit to get your rocks off. 

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2 hours ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

Police interrogations are about as far from actual psychology as you can possibly get.  I see absolutely zero reason for anyone who is even remotely involved in the psychological profession to waste a minute of their time on it.

 

I wouldn’t mind watching psychologists rip them to shreds I suppose.

 

Also while true crime doesn’t really interest me all that much, I’m inherently skeptical of, “entertainment genre X is rotting our brains” takes. If decades worth of playing violent video games hasn’t had an appreciable increase on violence, I’m not convinced that legions of people listening to true crime content is going to have the effect the author is claiming.

 

Internet sleuthing has been a thing for much longer than true crime has been as popular as it has been.

 

But I would agree that “trust your instincts” when it comes to awareness of danger is fundamentally flawed and unhelpful advice. 

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Man, I thought My Favorite Murder was bad... They were just glib about murders/assaults and painted cops as heroes. That nonsense in those tweets is a whole new level. 

 

 

My favorite "true crime" adjacent podcast is Last Podcast on the Left. And they're really only focusing on paranormal, UFO, spooky, and serial killer things. It feels a step removed. 

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1 minute ago, CayceG said:

Man, I thought My Favorite Murder was bad... They were just glib about murders/assaults and painted cops as heroes. That nonsense in those tweets is a whole new level. 

 

 

My favorite "true crime" adjacent podcast is Last Podcast on the Left. And they're really only focusing on paranormal, UFO, spooky, and serial killer things. It feels a step removed. 

 

LPOTL really isn't in the same genre as what's being described in the article.

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True crime stuff fucking sucks and I fully approve of this topic. 

 

Just do yourself a favor and watch Memories of Murder and Zodiac, which are artful, non-exploitative films that have more salient things to say about crime, violence, and law enforcement than thousands of hours of these shitty podcasts and shows could ever hope to.

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I do think people in true crime circles take things way too far, but I also think arguing that you shouldn't expose yourself to real things that happen for fear that they might make you more conservative is putting the cart before the horse and follows another obnoxious trend of reducing everything to ideology. 

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10 hours ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

I think I’d agree there. 
 

Worst one I watched was that Cecil Hotel series on Netflix. I couldn’t believe that got approved, it was just terrible. 


Holy shit that series.

 

The absolutely maddening part of the Cecil Hotel is that it’s like 85% of the way to being incredible, it just needed to shift its tone and its thesis.  It is, unintentionally, an amazing documentary as to the obsessive mindset and parasocial relationships people build out of absolutely fucking nothing.  All of the connections people make in their heads, the insistence of finding meaning in utterly pointless coincidences, hounding strangers over imagined motivations, dissecting a dead woman’s life based on a smattering of what she chose to put online, it could have been this incredible condemnation of that entire thing.  Instead it just absolutely fumbles the whole thing and treats that like it’s good actually and while it lead to some unfortunate problems these were at their core good people with good intentions.  Such a disappointment.

 

Now you want to watch a True Crime documentary that absolutely fucking kills that idea, The Impostor is still one of my favorites.  

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11 hours ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

Good God - you have GOT to be freakin' kidding me?!?!

most of them are garbage. i do find some amusement when these people get caught in their lies in interrogations and keep digging a bigger hole to cover their continuous lies lol 

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52 minutes ago, LazyPiranha said:


Holy shit that series.

 

The absolutely maddening part of the Cecil Hotel is that it’s like 85% of the way to being incredible, it just needed to shift its tone and its thesis.  It is, unintentionally, an amazing documentary as to the obsessive mindset and parasocial relationships people build out of absolutely fucking nothing.  All of the connections people make in their heads, the insistence of finding meaning in utterly pointless coincidences, hounding strangers over imagined motivations, dissecting a dead woman’s life based on a smattering of what she chose to put online, it could have been this incredible condemnation of that entire thing.  Instead it just absolutely fumbles the whole thing and treats that like it’s good actually and while it lead to some unfortunate problems these were at their core good people with good intentions.  Such a disappointment.

 

Now you want to watch a True Crime documentary that absolutely fucking kills that idea, The Impostor is still one of my favorites.  

Fucking spot on. I just felt so uncomfortable watching it at times. It felt like they tried to redeem themselves at the end, but after most of the series being so salacious, it felt like too little too late. 

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5 hours ago, ShreddieMercuryRising said:

True crime stuff fucking sucks and I fully approve of this topic. 

 

Just do yourself a favor and watch Memories of Murder and Zodiac, which are artful, non-exploitative films that have more salient things to say about crime, violence, and law enforcement than thousands of hours of these shitty podcasts and shows could ever hope to.

The scene where the mother with a flat tire flags down the guy is one of the most terrifying things I have ever seen.

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7 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

That's the one about the Golden State Killer and Patton Oswalt's late wife, correct?

 

Yeah, there's an uncomfortable extra layer of voyeurism to the whole thing considering that the author died before she finished it, but I think somehow the book's multiple tragedies humanize one another. 

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