All my mom watches is all of those Murder shows on cable like Forensic Files and the like. She's been watching this since I can remember and long before I ever heard the term "true crime". I legit think shows like this are why so many gen-x and boomers are terrified of the world. They all open talking about how the small town that the case happened in was using almost identical language each time, " here in x we don't lock our doors, everybody knows everybody, things don't happen like this in x, we stop and help people on theroad ". And as a person who grew up in a small town I'm like what? Everyone there is the most paranoid castle doctrine ass motherfucker I've ever met. They don't know their neighbors and they treat anyone who they don't know as threats. Then the show goes at lengths to show you how kind, pretty, full of life, etc the victim is so they can then go into detail about how they were brutalized.
I don't know where I'm going with this rant it's just something that's been on my mind for a while.
My mom spent a good chunk of my childhood binge watching Judge Judy and I think it had a similar yet also different brain rotting effect. She was a really paranoid cynic who believed everyone was constantly trying to fuck everyone else over. She instilled a fear in me and my sister that we couldn't trust anyone, everyone was just waiting for an opportunity to sue us for some BS. Made us both really maladjusted kids for most of our youth.
My dad would watch all the day time TV like Jerry Springer, Cops, and the like. All the shows where the point was to dehumanize and denigrate the poor.