+ Content warning: This chapter will discuss aspects of true crime, such as murder, kidnapping, cannibalism, the glorification of serial killers, victim blaming, etc. If you find any of these topics triggering, feel free to skip this chapter.

So. True Crime content has always been pretty popular, but there has definitely been a resurgence of it lately. Throughout the years, it has graced every new form of media— newspapers, magazines, books, radio, film/TV, social media, and now, most recently, podcasts. It's become so normalized in some of our lives that we as a society have started to become desensitized to it.

This has only become more obvious with the premiere of the Jeffrey Dahmer series on Netflix starring Evan Peters. I will get to that in a minute.

One of the most central debates about the community is: Is there an ethical way to consume/create true crime content? Can you do it respectfully, or are you always going to be a bad person for discussing these topics?

MY EXPERIENCE WITH TRUE CRIME, AND WHY AM I GUILTY OF CONSUMING THIS CONTENT?

I'm going to share something personal. Without giving too many details, a family member of mine was murdered when I had just become a teenager. It was one of the most horrifying, traumatic experiences of my life because I was very close to this person, and it has changed the way I look at life forever.

I feel like there is a level of understanding TC content that you cannot reach unless you've experienced something like this yourself. The victims' families are often forgotten in the conversation surrounding the creation of content. Like I said, it's such a life-altering, gut-wrenching experience that, even if you try to imagine what it's like from an outside perspective, you'll never truly comprehend it. The pain, the horror, the grief and the fear, it's all indescribable.

I was fourteen or fifteen when I started thinking about becoming a forensic scientist. I was very interested in how science can help solve crimes, and, due to my personal experience with such a horrific event, I desperately wanted to help families. The not-knowing is the worst part. The point where you're just waiting for answers, begging to know why and how and who, is agonizing. I know how that feels, so I wanted to enter a career where, not only was I interested in the work itself, I had a personal connection with why I would be doing it.

Alas, that path didn't work out because STEM kicked my ass. But I'm still very interested in forensic science (Forensic Files is one of my favorite shows) and true crime in general.

I'm not a hundred percent sure when my interest in true crime began. I feel like it was when I was in high school because I was desperate for answers. I wanted to know why people resort to such cruelty and violence, what kind of person they are, and how the system can be better for the families of victims (and also victims who survive). I took a criminology course and found it fascinating (plus I scored a 99% in the course, so *flips hair*).

It was around that time in my last year of high school (12th grade) when Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes was released on Netflix, shortly followed by Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile starring Zac Efron as Bundy. I didn't know too much about the dude aside from how people were convinced of his innocence because he was conventionally attractive, so I watched both.

I've seen many TC documentaries between then and now. I prefer the ones who involve the actual investigators and/or the families/victims because it helps me know that at least some people involved were consulted in the creation of the content. For example, Jan Broberg, the victim from Abducted in Plain Sight (2017), is an activist who frequently tells her story and wants it out there to warn other people of the dangers she faced.

I also listen to a few podcasts, including Crime Junkie, And That's Why We Drink, The Deck, Casefile, and Anatomy of Murder. But I have a bone to pick with some other podcasts (and even criticism of the ones I do listen to) which I'll
get into later.

REFLECTING ON MY OWN EXPERIENCE

I will fully acknowledge the hypocrisy of my experience with true crime.

A lot of the things I complain that I wouldn't be comfortable with, I do with other cases. But moving forward, I'm trying to be more cognizant of the content I consume and do better.

One time, I stumbled across a YouTube video that someone had made in which they covered the case of my family member. I was quite shocked, and, driven by some unknown force, decided to listen to the story. It was... surreal. I didn't know how to react. There was a nice sentiment because the creator made a piece of artwork and dedicated it to that family member, but it was also weird that they didn't try to contact any of my family to ask if it was okay for them to make the video beforehand.

And thus marked my spiral into questioning my own true crime content consumption.

How do the families of victims of prolific serial killers such as Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, Joseph DeAngelo, etc feel when their crimes are covered on every platform available, endlessly, with no end in sight? How do the surviving victims feel to see their real-life monsters posted all over, when their names are hardly remembered?

Those familiar with the Amanda Knox story know her name, but how many know that Meredith Kercher was the name of her roommate who was murdered? How many people can name even one of Ted Bundy's victims?

This, I think, is one of the greatest sins of the community— the creators of the content focus so much on the perpetrators instead of the victims. There's something morbidly fascinating about the people that commit heinous crimes, but it's important to recognize that they harmed actual people, people who had loved ones, people who lived and breathed (and some who are still around), not just faces on a screen or names on a podcast/radio show.

Once I reminded myself of how I would feel if this happened with my family member's case, I began to change how I looked at all of these things.

WHAT DO I THINK IS ETHICAL?

This is a matter of personal opinion. Not every victim/loved one of a victim is going to feel the same way, and what one person deems ethical may not be to someone else.

To me, I feel comfortable consuming a certain type of true crime content if it hits these marks:

1. NO VICTIM BLAMING. Honest to God, it really isn't hard not to blame someone for getting killed/assaulted/etc, but some content creators go WILD with this. "Well that's what they get for walking alone at night." "They let their kid do that? I would NEVER..." "They trusted that person? The red flags were ALL RIGHT THERE! That's their own fault at that point." And other such things.

It isn't funny. You aren't cute, smart, or quirky for saying these things. You're just an asshole.

You have NO idea what you would do in certain situations. You can be as prepared as you want, and something could still happen. You never expect the worst to happen to you or someone you love. You're no better than anyone else for asserting that you wouldn't do something, or that you saw something coming.

This type of thing is extremely hurtful not only to victims and families/loved ones, but just, like, on an empathetic level. Be a decent human being and direct your outrage toward the person who harmed another, NOT the victim.

2. PROPER RESEARCH. Nothing grinds my gears more than a case that is covered so flippantly or contains facts that are straight-up wrong. It's disrespectful to the victim(s) when misinformation is spread or their case is missing important details. Sometimes podcast hosts will mispronounce names, miss vital pieces of info, or just speed through the case. It's important to give these difficult topics enough time to be told.

3. A LACK OF JOKES AROUND THE MATTER. When I'm listening to a story about a violent crime, the last thing I want to hear is the people who are telling the story laughing and joking about what's going on. "True crime" as a genre should not be synonymous with "comedy". I will touch more on a Certain Podcast later that I think is extremely guilty of doing this.

4. THE CREATORS HAVE A MOTIVE FOR POSTING THE CONTENT THAT ISN'T SHOCK VALUE/HORROR. I hate when it seems that a piece of TC media was only created to spook people or hook them in like it's some sort of drama series. It's TRUE and the people involved aren't characters — they're real people. Having a traumatic event tossed around and hyped up like it's Riverdale is awful.

5. THE FAMILIES/VICTIMS WERE CONTACTED, IF POSSIBLE. One thing I like about Crime Junkie is that it often involves the families of the victims and the company (audiochuck) asks how they can help.

I know that it isn't always possible for this to happen, so I suppose a compromise is: if the families/victims have openly stated that they do NOT want their trauma remade into yet another TC piece of media, creators should RESPECT that. This is especially true for cases that are well-known and have been covered hundreds of times. New content prevents the families and victims from being able to heal— it's like an open wound being torn open again and again.

6. THE PROFITS GO TOWARD A GOOD CAUSE. Another thing I like about Crime Junkie is that they put their money where their mouth is and have donated a ton of funds to various non-profit organizations, including founding their own (Season of Justice, which helps provide funds to families & law enforcement agencies to assist in solving cold cases), DNASolves, indyhumane, The Elizabeth Smart Foundation, Identifinders, Color of Change, The LGBT Bar, and a bunch more. Podcast creation is their job, but they don't use all of the money for themselves. The idea of people making bank off of other people's trauma leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

There are a bunch of other ways I think TC content can be made ethically, but those are the main ones that come to my mind when I'm looking for something new.

HOW TRUE CRIME CONTENT CAN BE BENEFICIAL

There are lots of pieces out there that are dedicated to cold cases or unsolved mysteries. This is really beneficial for many reasons:

1. IT HELPS MAINTAIN PUBLIC INTEREST. Oftentimes, when a media hype dies down (or is never there to begin with), law enforcement may not be motivated to keep pushing through with a case as it gets cold. If people hear about the case through a show/film/etc, it keeps the conversation going.

2. IT MAY GENERATE SOME NEW LEADS. Someone out there knows something. Even if they don't realize it at the time, they can hear about an unsolved case and think, "Oh, you know, I did see a vehicle with that description driving slowly down a street around that time..." and contact their local authorities. This also refreshes the memory of the community in which the event took place and may provide new information that can lead to more tips.

3. IT CALLS FOR JUSTICE FOR NEGLECTED CASES. There are countless cases out there that were dismissed as accidents/suicides when the family/friends know that it was a homicide. There are countless cases where the police declined to mark someone as a missing person because of their history with mental health or drug/alcohol usage. There are countless cases of homicides of homeless people that haven't been solved. There are people out there that need the support of their community to help their loved ones receive justice.

4. IT CAN PROVIDE SAFETY TIPS FOR PEOPLE. When learning about TC content, people hear about things to look out for. This doesn't even apply to violent crime— it also involves theft, catfishing, fraud, phishing, pyramid schemes, etc. Red flags become more easily identifiable once people learn what they should notice.

Keeping the conversation going puts pressure on law enforcement. Putting the word out there can create new leads if someone has a worthy tip. There are cases of POC, LGBTQ+ people, poor people, etc whose stories have scarcely made headlines because of their circumstances or a lack of effort on law enforcement's part.

You can help make a change, even by just sharing an unsolved case.

I know that, when my family member was merely classified as "missing", I was grateful for every bit of news coverage because it kept the case in the public eye and led to the big tip that law enforcement needed. Some people are in desperate need of help. The only way to comfort them is to make sure they know their stories are being heard.

EXAMPLES OF UNETHICAL TRUE CRIME CONTENT

So, what do I think are examples of TC content that shine a bad light on the rest of the community?

1. DAHMER (2022)

I could spew hatred for this series forever and still not be satisfied.

Let me be clear: I think Evan Peters is a fantastic actor. I can't say anything about his performance in this because I refuse to watch it. I'm not hating on him or the people in it.

I'm hating on the fact that the families of the victims did NOT want this film to be made. They were not consulted in its creation. People were cast to portray these family members, acting out the most traumatic events of their lives.

Rita Isbell, whose brother was murdered by Dahmer, was depicted without her consent. She got the chance to address Dahmer in court and make a moving, heart-wrenching victim impact statement.... that was then performed by an actress.

She said, "I was never contacted about the show. I feel like Netflix should've asked if we mind or how we felt about making it. They didn't ask me anything. They just did it."

The fact that they recreated her victim impact statement makes me sick to my stomach. I have been in a court room as my family read their own victim impact statements to the murderer who ripped our lives apart. I don't think I've ever cried so hard in my entire life. It's suffocating, it takes a TREMENDOUS amount of guts and strength to do, and to have some random person reenact that without your consent??? Absolutely vile.

Here's another quote from her cousin about how the creation of this series affected the family:

(I wanted to put an image description under here, but there's too much text to do so without it being confusing)

Not to mention that this is leading to the glorification of Dahmer, which I will cover in another paragraph.

Please, if you had this on your list of things to watch, don't watch it. If you're in the middle of watching it, take time to consider the feelings of the families being portrayed without their consent.

2. THE MORBID PODCAST

Not sure if any of their scary fans follow me but if you are one, please hear me out. I have so much tea.

My friend recommended this podcast to me a while ago and I decided to take a listen. Something felt off to me and it took some research before I finally figured out what it was.

They cross all of the boundaries I mentioned in my "how can you make TC ethical" list.

The hosts, Alaina and Ashley, victim blame up the wazoo. Alaina is a mother. Thus, she has decided that she is allowed to speak down to other parents who did questionable things in TC cases (like maybe not reporting their child missing immediately because they thought their kid was at a friend's house), or even for committing the cardinal sin of *gasp!* letting their kid stay out late.

They also have an episode on Britanee Drexel, who went missing while on vacation with some friends. A&A proposed a theory that all of her friends were involved in a drug operation with no evidence, encouraged harassment of said friends, and read a listener tale story in which the sender called the girls names. The murderer was recently convicted. None of the girls had any involvement.

They misgendered the Frankston serial killer (AMAB but transitioned after the fact) and made fun of their identity, saying that their pronouns shouldn't be respected because they're a piece of shit. Nobody deserves to be misgendered and mislabeled. (To be fair, they did address this in the episode after that, but they basically said they didn't mean to do that, and everything got misconstrued, but it doesn't sound like an apology to me.)

They run wild with armchair diagnoses of criminals, vilifying conditions such as Bipolar Depression, Bipolar Disorder, etc, without any actual proof of the people having these conditions.

Their Patreon scammed people for years. People would pay for tiers that promised gifts, only those promises were never fufilled. The bonus episodes would come out weeks late and people said they were disappointing.

The sister of a victim they did an episode on posted this review:

[ID: 1 star iTunes review with the title "No respect for the victims!!!!!" The review reads, "Morbid did a podcast on my sister Maddie Clifton. Some of the information they provided during this podcast was VERY UNTRUE and I was looking to speak with them to make things right. I reached out and emailed them multiple times and finally we reached a time where we could speak over the phone and they promised to right the wrong. After that, I never heard from them again. I emailed them multiple times and no response. I hate that in this podcast it makes my family look and sound bad. They have really hurt my feelings and I hope no other victims have to go through this!"]

Hypocrisy about the ethics of TC merch:

[ID: Tweet saying "Imagine thinking it's funny/quirky/edgy to wear a shirt mocking the way people were murdered🤮" with an attachment of a t-shirt that says, "Choke me like Bundy, eat me like Dahmer"]

[ID: Alaina's reply to the above tweet, where she says, "Wowwwwwwww" and includes a gif from Schitt's Creek captioned, "What the actual f**k?" Below it, someone else responded to Alaina's tweet with, "This you?" and an attachment of the below image]

[ID: Morbid merch of a green mug with a cartoonish depiction of serial killers Ed Kemper, Ted Bundy, and John Wayne Gacy. Ash and Alaina are in front, their images altered versions of Velma and Daphne from Scooby Doo to fit their appearances.]

Nick Kern, the son of a victim they discussed on the show, reached out to them via Instagram to discuss complaints he had with how they handled his father's case (joking throughout, not asking permission, using family photos to promote the episode, etc). The fans immediately attacked him. A&A invited him onto the show which he initially agreed to, then decided not to after A&A deleted the post his comments were on, which was starting to open up conversations around the ethics of TC content.

There's a lot more. If you're interested, check out the Subreddit r/Morbidforbadpeople on Reddit. It's different from the main Subreddit for the show because mega fans were attacking anyone with a minor complaint in r/Morbidpodcast.

Morbid is a very popular, successful podcast, and they don't seem to use their immense platform to do anything good. They claim "Fresh air is for dead people" and blamed teenage camp counselors for the Girl Scout Murders. Not great.

3. THE GABBY PETITO LIFETIME MOVIE.

Yeah. This is a thing.

Once again, Lifetime did not have permission from the family to make this movie. Not to mention it's only a YEAR after Gabby's tragic death. They were definitely hoping for this to make bank because of the case being such a hot topic as it unfolded, which is disgusting.

This is the epitome of disrespect to Gabby and her family.

4. SOME PODCAST TITLES IN GENERAL

There are some podcasts with... questionable titles. There's one called My Favorite Murder which makes me cringe. Like... your favorite... horrible crime that resulted in a real person's death??

I feel like some TC podcast creators don't think about if their title is in good taste. They just want to be witty and funny and catchy as opposed to respectful.

I think there's a fine line between being respectful and in poor taste, and it's difficult to walk it when it comes to this. 

STOP GLORIFYING SERIAL KILLERS

I don't know how many times we as a society have to keep learning this lesson.

People have this misconception that serial killers are all masterminds and geniuses. Their IQs are unmatched and how they committed their crimes was a stroke of genius.

Most of the time, it was dumb luck, a connection to law enforcement that aided their escapes, and being a huge effing idiot. Or all three. Or other things, but mostly not being a genius.

Dennis Rader, aka BTK, was caught because he asked the police, "Hey, can you track a floppy disk?" and the police said "Uh... no, BTK! We certainly can't! Send it on over!" and he did and they tracked where the material on it originated from and he was arrested. Moron.

Dahmer was building a throne of skulls in his house as a shrine to Darth Vader. Like. That sounds like the equivalent of a modern grown man who does nothing but play video games in his parents' basement and harasses people.

Also, now that the Dahmer series is out, PEOPLE ARE DRESSING. UP. THEIR CHILDREN. AS. JEFFREY. DAHMER.

I CANNOT MAKE THIS UP.

Grown adults are putting their toddlers, elementary aged kids, middle schoolers, in costumes as a SERIAL KILLER. And giving them fake food that's supposed to be human body parts and being like "Ha ha! So cute! So funny!"

NO.

This is absolutely vile on so many levels. This isn't Michael Meyers or Edward Scissorhands. This was a real-life human being, who tortured and killed other human beings. He ruined real people's lives and those people are still around today. Your little boy dressed as Dahmer is not cute. It's sickening.

Also the people sexualizing Evan Peters as Dahmer make me want to launch myself directly into the sun. Yes, people are making sexual comments, edits, videos, etc about how they want Evan as Dahmer, or even the actual real-life Dahmer, to kill them/eat them/do... sexual things with them.

IT MAKES ME ???!!! SO ?!????

Anyways this rant is really long and unedited. Sorry if it's a mess but I'm very passionate about this topic. I'd love to hear your guys' opinions on things I've mentioned in this chapter!

The bottom line is yes I'm a hypocrite and yes I contradict myself several times in this, but I'm trying my best to navigate something I'm passionate about while being cognizant of my own trauma and that of others.