By: Nessa Purdy
Opinion Editor
In recent years social media has seen a massive wave of true crime media with documentaries, TV shows, podcasts, and countless social media accounts dedicated to telling stories of serial killers, mass murders, and cults. While morbid curiosity is a very real and very normal thing, our society’s obsession with true crime is not only abnormal, but perhaps points to a larger fault in our generation’s desensitization to violence.
The rising popularity of social media platforms like YouTube and TikTok corresponds to a rise in a morbid obsession with murderers, unsolved crimes, and tragedy. The romanticization of notorious serial killers like Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer has become a major component of the true crime culture. These people are responsible for the murders of innocent people, yet there are countless hours of media dedicated to eternalizing their legacies. I am not trying to argue that true crime itself is not interesting; the issue is the fetishization and obsession that often comes with the popularity of these true crime sites.
More recently, the true crime community has shifted their obsession to Gypsy Rose Blanchard. Blanchard was released from prison after serving seven years of a second degree murder sentence for conspiring to kill her mother. The context surrounding Blanchard’s case is incredibly complex and has sparked heated ethical debates on social media. Regardless, Blanchard has shot to stardom on social media, with countless interviews, fan accounts, and 8.3 million Instagram followers. The obsession with Blanchard is being fueled mainly by people who believe she should have never been jailed in the first place, and that after suffering years of abuse, the murder of Blanchard’s mother was self defense.
I don’t wish to take a stance on the ethics of Blanchard’s imprisonment; I do however, believe that the fascination and iconization of Blanchard is a symptom of a toxic online zeitgeist. The current cultural atmosphere of social media is one that fosters intense obsession cycles, whether that be with a product or a person. However, promoting a person who is ultimately responsible for the death of another person to celebrity status is especially worrying.
Our generation’s relentless obsession with true crime has been sensationalizing violence and normalizing harmful behavior. Frequent exposure to vivid retellings of gruesome acts of violence desensitize viewers to aggression and cruelty. This consistent romanticization of serial killers and criminals fosters destructive parasocial relationships devoid of any empathy for the victims of these killers. The current obsession with true crime must be addressed in order to prevent the glorification and desensitization of death and violence.