Is True Crime Too Trendy?

A 23-year-old South Korean woman whom reporters call a "true-crime aficionado" confessed last month to killing and dismembering someone she met online. Allegedly "obsessed" with books and broadcasts detailing actual murders, Jung Yoo-Jung reportedly killed "out of curiosity."

I, too, was obsessed with true crime at her age, and for nearly all my life before.

Transfixed, I treasured In Cold Blood and then Beyond Belief—about two lovers who tortured and murdered five children in Yorkshire. My prized middle-school purchase—when it was new—was the 1973 true-crime encyclopedia Bloodletters and Badmen.

True crime enthralled me because it was psychological, probing the depths to which rage, envy, delusion, desire, and other mental states could dive. Those books clearly divided "good" from "evil"—clarity I needed, being raised by adults I adored but feared, and believing myself monitored by a vigilant, ruthless God.

For fans back then, true crime was mainly an obscure and passive hobby: Read. Hate killers. Pity victims. Applaud justice done.

But, over the last decade-plus, true crime has soared into super-fad status, fueling influencers, discord servers, podcasts, subreddits, conventions, celebrities, and such TV ratings-toppers as Night Stalker, Tiger King, and The First 48.

True-crime today is active, interactive, and performative. It is, along with much else now, a defining identity. It is about the self.

Fans—most of whom are women, studies say—now cast themselves as sleuths and superstars. Some create content. Some snap-crime scene selfies, strive to solve ongoing cases, seek clues, and contact cops. Some buy "murderabilia." Some write fanfic, enjoy cosplay, and create killer-themed art. Subcommunities thrive: Self-described "Columbiners" idolize Columbine High School shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. Viewed by millions, YouTubers such as Danielle Kirsty and Bailey Sarian narrate brutal slaughter while applying makeup, which their subscribers find curiously soothing.

While hybristophilia—the romanticization of famous murderers—has been observed for centuries, it's now mainstream.

Last fall, after Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story became one of Netflix's most popular series ever, YouTube videos sprang up with titles such as "Jeffrey Dahmer Is Sexy" and "Jeffrey Dahmer is HOT." Dahmer-related TikToks received more than 9 billion views. Halloween costumes effecting the Wisconsin killer-cannibal's floppy blonde bangs and square spectacles proved so popular that eBay execs banned their sale.

Lines blur. True crime inspires fans in all directions.

Popular online are shirts depicting the youthful face of California spree-killer Elliot Rodger, who slew six people and injured 14 one spring night in 2014. Many such shirts also display the sobriquet cherished by Rodger's adorers: "Supreme Gentleman."

Having killed 11 Toronto pedestrians and injured 15 in April 2018, 25-year-old Alek Minassian proclaimed on Facebook, "All hail the Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger!"

Charged in May 2023 with possessing a homemade bomb, 22-year-old Texan Noah Calderon was a "Columbiner," having posted memes about the high-school shooters and praising them in a manifesto.

In February 2023, a British court found 25-year-old Shaye Groves guilty of slitting her boyfriend's throat and stabbing him 17 times. Friends said Groves binge-watched true-crime documentaries; rows of framed paintings of serial killers festooned her home.

Crime has existed as long as humans have. Why then is true-crime fandom skyrocketing here and now? Are millions simply bored and seeking hyperstimulation? Have we been desensitized?

Did a devastating series of early-21st-century crises—financial, political, environmental, medical—fling the world into perma-panic? Since 9/11, or 2008, or 2020, have fear, mistrust, and desperation become the new normal such that crime and criminals feel like a lingua franca? Is pondering real-world murders our new metaphor for pondering our own distress in what feels to many like a broken culture?

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Are we, in this distress, striving to define—or redefine—"villain," "victim," "evil," and "good"?