My parents watch Criminal Minds and similar shows all the time, two friends of mine bought a book about a serial killer and my Twitter timeline is full of people talking about a new true crime podcast. It's just my bubble or is it a broad cultural phenomenon?
My big paranoid brain wants to say there's some psyop/social engineering element to it. Ever since I read McGowan's Programmed to Kill: The Politics of Serial Murder * I've had a lot of mixed feelings about serial killers and the whole true crime media system. It's been a while since I read the book but I think McGown speculates at some point that the Phoenix Program played a role in creating the massive increase and popularization of serial killers during their heyday. Perhaps there's some modern, domestic Phoenix Program that incorporates this type of media in order to nudge people in a desired direction.
This idea just occurred to me, but I might as well throw it out there too: maybe this media serves - in part - to disseminate emotionally charged retellings of traumatic experiences. Intelligence services are very familiar with how trauma can be used to manipulate people. That same principle can be applied by private entities to entire populations. But in this case you don't have to physically torture someone - you just cause enough anxiety/unease/discomfort in them that they become more susceptible to your suggestions.
* Btw massive CW for that book; for basically any awful thing you can imagine
I too try no to go too tinfoil about this, but considering the reputation of the american intelligent services it isn't too far fetched to thing they have some influence on these questions, they probably do some social engineering. I searched about the McGowan Book, it seems really interesting, I'll definitely put on my list! Thanks comrade!