I Hate True Crime

Keep reading for an explanation!

Now that I have your attention, yes, the title is an exaggeration to make a point. If I truly hated this genre of nonfiction—and I believe the “true” part of “true crime” deserves far more attention these days, as social media has aided in rendering it indistinguishable from people’s fantasies—I would’ve long ago stopped purchasing true crime domain names or even bothering to read about it.

I hate what’s happened to the genre. I often (but not always) agree with the genre’s critics, who dislike how the fandomization of true crime, fueled by social media, has trivialized some of the worst aspects of human behavior. This quote from criminologist Enzo Yaksic (see preceding link) says it well:

We live in a society that has fetishized serial murder to such a degree that popular children’s characters are being corrupted and turned into murderers. Some children’s toys have kids talking about killing and murder. Not surprising given the legacy of the original homicidal doll, Chucky, who boasts about being “the MVP of serial murder” in a new television show dedicated to his crimes in the modern age. Families pose for murder-themed photos where young children hold a tea party over a dead body. In some corners of the Internet, comical memes are disseminated and laughed at all at the expense of the victims. Many in society still believe that serial murderers have physical characteristics that are intrinsic only to them, a myth perpetuated by celebrities who use the term to describe someone who has the ‘look’, the ‘eyes’, or a lack of emotions.

Yaksic is a diligent researcher and a prolific writer, and is worth reading whenever you encounter him. (This, about “TikTok Professors,” is a good read about social media’s negative influence on true crime.)

Thanks to the time I spent appearing on cable TV news in the early 2000s, I feel some responsibility for some of the awful things Yaksic mentions above, and the fear I was trivializing terrible events has always bothered me. It was a factor in my decision to step away from being identified solely with crime stories 16 years ago.

Al Pacino as Michael Corleone in The Godfather: Part III

Profound depression spurred by my parents’ deaths in 2023 torpedoed all my writing for a time, but very slowly, I feel myself pulled back in. Not like Michael Corleone, but willingly. I sometimes have no idea what I can add anymore, or how I can even begin to change what’s happened in the genre.

I dislike what true crime has become, so the point of this issue of my TCR newsletter is to warn you that I have problems with many aspects of what’s considered normal in the genre, and as someone who isn’t fond of conflict (I have a hair trigger temper so it’s safer for me and others if I avoid it), I had to make a conscious decision to go there sometimes when I decided I’d start writing more often again.

I’ll illustrate how critical I am of the true crime infotainment industry. These are my favorite podcasts right now:

• Office Ladies 6.0

• The Severance Podcast with Ben Stiller & Adam Scott

• Obscure, hosted by my buddy Michael Ian Black.

Those are the only podcasts I listen to on a regular basis. As is evident if you’re into podcasts, none of them are true crime. In the past, I’ve also listened to the Unsolved Mysteries pod, another show about declassified CIA missions…and that’s about it.

As I’m writing this, I can’t recall a true crime podcast that I’ve started or tried to follow that didn’t immediately irritate me to the point of deleting it from my queue (Unsolved Mysteries is often about crime, but that’s not all). Professionally-backed podcasts about single crimes from big media—NBC, NPR, CBS—sadly, are often at least listenable, usually because their hosts might have to adhere to the employer’s handbook, which might have rules that help them avoid overt sensationalism. I say sadly, because I do think there’s still room in the digital sphere for citizen journalism.

When I’ve bothered to listen to an episode or two, I’ve been appalled at the glib tone of many true crime podcasts, which has bled into a lot of what passes for “true crime writing” online, like virtually every article with the tag on Medium. I also don’t know what to make of true crime fan conventions. It’s hard for me to understand their existence. A man confessed to dozens of murders, often raping his victims with extreme brutality beforehand, and he’s your “poster boy?” A woman viciously murdered her boyfriend out of jealousy and possessiveness, attacking him when he was defenseless in the shower, and she’s some avatar of feminine strength to you? This feels like the world has been turned upside down to me.

I am tempted to elaborate on my feelings about how reality TV and politics have exacerbated the situation, contributing to the normalization of real and awful human behavior as entertainment, but that’s for another discussion.

Suffice to say, it’s not that I’m doing something I hate with this true crime newsletter. I’m doing something most people naturally want to do, and working to understand a terrifying facet of human behavior—and the way it affects us all. Consider the impact of past major crimes on the perception of an entire town or city. Think Boulder and JonBenet, or my hometown of Nashville, and the 1974 kidnapping and murder of a girl named Marcia Trimble. Or, more recently, Moscow, Idaho, and the murders of four college students there in 2022. It’s normal to find such things fascinating and to want to make sense of them. And hopefully, one day, prevent them from happening again.

I’ve been a professional writer long enough that I can’t avoid trying to make the writing worth reading, and I hope that won’t seem like I’m sensationalizing. Still, I’m sure it might, to some (including Mr. Yaksic, even though I often agree with him). However, I maintain that public and “amateur” discussions of crime have merit and can be done effectively. There are also existing criticisms of true crime that I disagree with. For instance, sometimes it is worth it to learn what motivated a person to pull a trigger or attack a loved one. That logically means naming them. It’s also essential to understand how people can become victims—and to do so without victim-blaming. Figuring out the path someone took to certain situations is vital to understanding what happened to them, and many survivors of crime want that.

And we all are drawn to the unsolved, for a host of reasons. That’s an essential part of being human: a craving for answers to questions that won’t go away.

I’ll try to avoid starting beefs with anyone else in the true crime sphere, though it is rife with those and was in the past. In the pre-2010 days of true crime blogging, cooperation and mutual promotion were essential, and I made real friends who remain so today. I’m going to do what I did then, and rather than neg on someone to score unneeded points, I’ll find someone who does it well—that was how I became friends with Michelle McNamara in 2006, after reading her polished and penetrating reporting in her True Crime Diary—and recommend their work instead.

I continue to get subscriptions here and there and want to respect that as well. So there will be more to come.

I’ll work to make it all worth your time.