As far back as a decade ago, being interested in things like true crime and murder investigations was often seen as morbid or strange. However, in recent years, many people around the world have become incredibly invested in the lives of psychopathic killers/criminals and their victims. Why is this?
What draws people in about true crime is that it is unbelievable. The things that appear in a true crime documentary are the same things that often occur in horror movies, which are completely fictional. However, in the case of true crime, the crimes are exactly as they have been described: true.
One important thing that all people crave is entertainment, whether this comes from scrolling on their phone, reading a book, or watching a sports game. With technology being as advanced as it is now, many people’s attention spans are not what they used to be. People are constantly looking for something to gratify their need for entertainment, and when they can’t find something especially stimulating in their everyday life, they often turn to forms of technological media. While some people enjoy watching movies and TV shows, fictional stories aren’t for everyone. As gratifying as finishing a movie or TV series is, the characters are unable to jump off the screen and become real, whereas the subjects put under the spotlight in true crime documentaries are real people who really experienced the crazy and tragic events depicted on our screens.
Most true crime documentaries start off the same way: they elicit sympathy for the victim/s. Whether this be by interviewing friends and family members, or showing pictures of the victim/s at a young age, they engage the audience and cause them to make an emotional connection with someone who was harmed. While this hooks the audience, it isn’t what keeps them watching. In fact, many viewers are interested, not by how the crime was committed, but by the psychology of the perpetrator.
They, as normal human beings, wonder how a criminal offender could do things with ease that they would never dream of. Not because they want to do those things themselves, but because they are genuinely curious as to how that works in someone’s mind. Most villains put to light in true crime documentaries are psychopaths. In reality, only about 1% of people are true psychopaths, so it is rare to find someone exhibiting pure psychopathic behavior in the wild. However, with the click of a button, you can go to Netflix and have numerous true crime documentaries at your fingertips.
Normal people want to understand why psychopaths will rip apart their family, the course of their future, and their entire life for no apparent reason. Another reason why people love to watch true crime is because they are afraid of it. Yes, this could be seen as a contradictory statement. Why would you purposefully expose yourself to something you fear? Well, it is easy to be afraid of something if you don’t know anything about it. Restriction of information about something can often cause the brain to fill in the gaps with the worst possible kinds of information. That being said, when people watch true crime, they feel as though they are educating themselves on things that could actually happen to them. The more they know about other peoples’ twisted minds, the easier it should be to protect themselves from it.
Something else that people crave is adrenaline. Your classic adrenaline junkie could jump off a cliff into a rough ocean, and that would satisfy them. However, most of us would like to be able to feel some sort of adrenaline without putting our lives at stake. When you are cuddled upon your couch under a fuzzy blanket, you feel safe. This is juxtaposed with the way watching true crime can make you feel: jumpy, unsafe, and feeling like you are being watched. People love this; they are able to fully immerse themselves in a purely terrifying world, only to be able to jump right out of it by simply pausing their TV.
People like to look into the face of danger and have it not feel personal. Yes, it can be scary to see someone being hunted by a member of their family, but it is a “safe” kind of fear. We don’t want to see them get caught, or killed, or injured, but at the same time we know that nothing can happen to us.
Additionally, some people watch true crime for purely analytical reasons. They want to explore the dark recesses of the psychopathic mind, and understand why people did what they did. Others would simply like to map out how this crime even happened. When they can go on the internet and find things like a victim’s or criminal’s Instagram, it makes what they are watching feel so immersive and real that they can’t stop until they know how it ends. By tying into the real world, documentaries can send people down rabbit holes that are very difficult to get out of.
In the end, people really watch true crime out of curiosity. They know that the documentaries will scare them, but they feel like they are gaining something from watching. They are satisfying their curiosity regarding criminal minds, and they feel as though they are informing themselves about potential dangers in their own lives.
