https://twitter.com/jeremythunder/status/1448768005488447491?t=lm9kfyRqn0OPk3s6ODbhnA&s=19
https://twitter.com/HugoTheCat3/status/1448859734350696448?t=lm9kfyRqn0OPk3s6ODbhnA&s=19
Today on true crime: An entire wedding party slaughtered in an instant while the killer appeared on live TV an ocean away.
I don't wanna sound like some kind of pearl clutching suburbanite, but goddamn. Out of all the spectacles America has shat out I think I hate the true crime stuff the most. It's genuinely horrifying to me. I hate how it's always framed, not as some kind of unfortunate breakdown of society or a failure of mental health services, instead true crime revels in the gore and morbidity. It's just sick and romanticizes people like Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy. We're so sick we've turned serial murder into a fandom on the level of Harry Potter and Hamilton.
The conclusion is always the same but I've rarely heard it brought up. That is, these serial murderers are symptoms of white supremacist cops and a failure of mental healthcare. Last Podcast on the Left has mentioned it occasionally.
I don't know how to express my hatred of this particular obsession without sounding pretentious. I swear I like other fun stuff like violent video games and heavy metal.
I think about a decade ago I went on a Youtube documentary binge learning about all the well known US serial killers since I was unaware. I don't think it is that uncommon for people to be morbidly curious about this stuff?
I can't speak for the newer podcasts like Serial tho since I haven't listened. They do seem more explicitly exploitative in how they are structured.
Oh yeah, there's a difference between morbid curiosity and whatever the hell this is. There are real reasons for wanting to research murders and other grisly things. There's a lot to learn. I've researched Charles Manson over and over so I'm in the same boat as you are. I don't know how to put my specific complaint into words. What I hate is that "serial killer obsessive" is a kind of cultural aesthetic one can adopt similar to enjoying sports or watching Star Trek. That part is ludicrous.
It's turning real suffering and death into essentially a horror movie fandom.
I only started listening to lpotl when Dave Anthony endorsed them, and while there the best True Crime podcast, that's like being the best smelling dumpster fire.
At least they bring up mental health and police not often than others.
Yep, they avoid soyfacing over all the grisly details. They also have a nice variety of topics like cults and aliens to break up some of the darker stuff
Also, they point out that none of the people they cover are "dark, twisted, masterminds", but horrific people with no redeeming qualities.
It's absolutely sick and the people who watch/listen to it should be ashamed. They are not helping society, they are not helping themselves, they are vultures enjoying the death of their fellow humans.
That's a bit harsher than what I'd say. I'd put more blame on whatever's causing this cultural phenomenon, like capitalism or alienation or background noise white supremacy. The people obsessed with true crime are just putting a podcast on or watching a TV show, same as a lot of folks. They don't intuit it as different than any other form of entertainment and why would they? We're all sitting on graves and enjoying the fruits of imperialism. The fans are only damaging their own psyches from listening, but that's the position we're all in. I can't say I'm much better in regard to my humanity than the true crime fans, I laugh when conservative radio hosts die of covid or when cops kill themselves.
When you laugh at cops and conservative hosts, those are active enemies you are laughing at. They are opposed to you, and have hurt you. Watching a serial killer attack someone, or listening to an account of it, for entertainment and not to learn something abut society or what exactly happened, is taking pleasure in the pain and death of another. People should notice this and that it is wrong.
I think we might be headbutting a weird grey zone of personal morality and cultural phenomenon that doesn't have an easy answer. People obsess over whatever spectacles exist in the current moment. The entertainment that's given to them is perceived as what's available.
Someone who has read more Debord or Althusser or someone could probably say what I'm struggling to put into words.
I haven't read those but when you are hyperindividualized and "the protagonist of your own movie" and the hedonic treadmill is robbing you of pleasure, it seems like there's a certain type of person who can only still "get off" by self-inserting themselves as the victim in these stories
capitalist exploitation and ecocide of the whole planet: :comfy:
someone somewhere is listening to a true crime podcast: :honk-enraged:
I can be upset by more than one thing at a time, believe it or not. If I saw one man shoot a hospital and another trip a child and laugh at him, I would be upset by both.
Calling thousands of completely normal people "vultures enjoying death" who "are not helping society" and who "should be ashamed of themselves" for consuming media you don't personally approve of is peak internet discourse but :honk-enraged: away I guess
Don't think someone who 1. Accused me of a position/priority list I didn't have from a single comment 2. Implied I didn't care enough about a big problem because I voiced an opinion about another problem and 3. Switched arguments mid-roll can really accuse anyone else of being peak internet discourse. All that aside, what's even your point here? It's not something i just don't like or approve of, I've stated pretty clearly it's actively harmful. Are you going to argue that they aren't deriving pleasure from other people's pain and suffering, or that this is somehow helping society?
dang excellent point. You took an aggressive tone and have yet to correct me on what part of my thinking is wrong, I'm clearly being irrational.
Was it? That's when the Zodiac killer was a national news story every week and everyone and their mom became Hercule Poirot.
despite the incredible tonal dissonance between the banner and the subject matter I get the impression that they will tut tut the optics of celebrating a war criminal dying.
From that bio, it would be out of character for them to not defend Kissinger from people celebrating his death
I know nothing about this, but that picture tells me it is 100% a trash podcast.
Just more background paranoia that the world is filled with dangerous people and we should listen to podcasts and police on how how to deal with them.
yes but also no. a ton of true crime stories reveal horrific incompetency and often explicit corruption of police forces
True crime sucks, and seems specifically to appeal to shitty liberals for some reason.
It's all a spook to get useful idiots more likely to support a stronger police force.
A pretty timely article: https://www.gawker.com/culture/true-crime-is-rotting-our-brains
"...and then she was murdered by the traveling salesman and cut up into pieces and thrown away"
[midi keyboard notes]
"but where she was thrown away there was something even more disturbing than anyone could have imagined."
[midi keyboard notes]
"at e-pet insurance your pure bred dog with hip dysplasia can get its hips undisplaysiad like our English Bulldog "Winifred"
[midi keyboard notes]
"in the field where her head ended up, there were dead babies and crap probably and young people having sex and satanic panic."
[midi keyboard notes]
TRUE CRIME
Lmao the lowest tier on their patreon ($5/month) is called"non-garbage person"
I gave an episode a listen because I haven't even heard of the podcast before. Their banner image is correct, it's the soyest goddamn thing I've ever heard. If :liz-society: 's laugh had its own podcast and that podcast was one of those horrible IHeartRadio commercials during a good podcast, it would resemble the five minutes I could stomach of this. The genre is better off in the hands of weird parasocial relationships with British boy band rejects dressed as lumberjacks.
edit: Specifically either the podcast where it's a brother and sister awkwardly trying to brag about knowing famous people or two coked-up Harvey Weinstein guys aggressively bragging about knowing famous people.
"we're so weird and quirky and know famous people" - brother and sister
"you remember me from all of your favourite shows and if you don't know which one trust me it's your favourite"
I hope her legacy is an Ozymandias poem. People will walk through a desert and be amazed at how quickly history forgot about her fucking shows.
All I'm asking for is a true crime show from a leftist perspective that touches on how these crimes come from capitalism and the society shaped by it.
