24.12.2022 [03:38]
Every single friend of mine has Netflix, but since I'm skinflint to the point of annoyance, I just refuse to subscribe to services of that sort. It's an unusual privilege, because it prevents me from laying my eyes on abhorrent true-crime "documentaries". Those sweet, lovely amalgamations of fake mid-80s film filters, vine-boom-esque sound effects and ugly men in the bloom of their androgenetic alopecia. What's better than that?
I want to start this brief text with a disclaimer.
I have never been truly into true-crime, my interest started off as a general "damn this amount of premeditation is crazy" that evolved into "damn this amount of goofiness during interrogation is crazy". My knowledge on certain crimes mostly comes from the news, blogs, Wikipedia and interrogation analyses. I only care about true-crime if something related appears on my screen when I browse around social media (which doesn't happen a lot, so I don't care about it very much).
Despite my poor knowledge on the crimes themselves, I sure do have a lot to say about the "true-crime scene" (pun not intended). But first and foremost, I will get something off my chest.
The vast majority of the most "interesting" cases are just males enacting male violence. I can't find what's "interesting" about their character, their personality, their quirks or their goals. I find it quite revolting actually. It (un)intentionally elevates a murderer/wife-beater/misogynist/rapist/etc to a "peculiar" character worthy of countless documentaries, films, re-enactments and cringy "I don't condone" fan blogs. None of this ever brought awareness to the issues that caused these degenerations (of an already degenerated society) to arise.
There's nothing more repetitive and exhausting than said type of violence (not necessarily against women). What's truly interesting is how the audience is so quick to humanize the male perpetrators with adjectives such as "misunderstood" or "alienated", or with deresponsabilizing sentences like "if he didn't get bullied, this wouldn't have happened". At the same time, the same people excessively dehumanize female perpetrators (or female victims) by micro-analyzing every little aspect of their behavior, especially if the crime was in response to months or years of abuse. "Yeah she didn't deserve to get killed but she cheated/she hit him while fighting back/etc equal rights equal fights am I right haha" "Yeah he was violent and unfaithful but she could've just broken up with him lol". I'm not going to digress further, this isn't the point.
There is something about almost every branch of the true-crime community that twists my guts in disgust every time I stumble upon it, so I decided to sort them from best to worst according to my experience.
Best - Can't get better than this.
JCS-style videos. Undoubtedly my favorites. JCS Criminal Psychology is a YouTube Channel that provides lengthy commentaries on psychological phenomena that occur in interrogation rooms. I absolutely love these. They are incredibly well-made and educational. It focalizes on the weaknesses of the interviewed culprit rather than creating an often-glamorized narrative around their character. The narrator does not interject with his opinions, he provides facts and insights on what happened, as well as the doubts the investigation team(s) have in ambiguous situations.
These are, in my humble opinion, videos that even true-crime loathers can really enjoy.
I used JCS-"style" videos because this isn't the only channel with this format, however, stuff like Mind Of A Criminal tends to abuse the spooky bgm a little bit too much for my standards. And this brings us to the next category.
Mildly tolerable: 2Sp00ky4Me commentaries.
The ones with the spooky, annoying bgm, even for true-crime standards. Often narrated like a teacher reading Goosebumps to some kids on Halloween (never witnessed it in my hypercath country but that's what I think it's like), or like those creepypasta voiceovers on youtube back in the early 2010s. Not fond of it, but there's worse. At least they're trying to sound serious, I guess.
Intolerable.
Tryhard blogs. The ones that have the obligatory disclaimer "do not condone" as if having an entire aesthetic blog based on school shooters wasn't laughable enough. Mostly on Tumblr (half of my mutuals back in 2017) but there's a fair share of them on this platform too. Dedicated to humanizing mid, ugly-ass incels because they're balls deep into the "not like the other girls"/MRA phase. It's okay, you'll grow out of it once you finish high school. The embarrassment you'll experience when you'll think about this in the near future will be 100% deserved though.
Insufferable (redeemable).
"Hybristophiles". Mostly young women who think they can fix notorious male serial killers through kindness and "this isn't you, X". I won't go too hard on them because they're mostly edgy and severely delusional wannabe tradwives who desperately seek the attention of unworthy, abusive men because media and fiction created the myth that the aforementioned can have a redemption arc through reeducation or love (guess what, it doesn't work like that, nice gaslighting tho). Please seek a counselor or try to make meaningful friendships. You can't outsmart an abusive partner if your goal is to "fix" them. And please, take down that Richard Ramirez fanfiction you're writing.
Worst - Insufferable (irredeemable).
Podcasters and youtubers who put their makeup on while talking about true-crime cases. Definitely overstepped the boundary of morality (not that hard for influencers). I vigorously feel hatred towards those who build their careers on disrespecting the victims through oversimplified, "quirky" commentaries while doing something unserious. It further desensitizes topics that should (and must) be sensible. Podcasters rely on humor to lighten up the mood, but why the hell would they do that when talking about the thousandth woman being killed by a social reject? Appalling, I tell you, these individuals are the purest definition of tone-deafness. Content creators like such are the main reason why many "documentaries" or movies "inspired by X serial killer" exist in the first place: the main goal is to cater to a gigantic, mindless audience that doesn't give a shit about delving into the true reasons behind someone's actions, but rather choose to devour hours of distasteful content like a Shane Dawson call-out video.
This brings us to the terminus. I don't know why I decided to write this at roughly 4 in the morning, I couldn't (and still can't) sleep. I will only apologize for the amount of unnecessary subordinates my romance ass couldn't stop expressing herself with.
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