The contemporary obsession with true crime has been a dominant force in our culture for the past century. From Truman Capote’s 1966 groundbreaking novel, ‘In Cold Blood’, to Eleanor Neale’s investigative YouTube channel: the once niche obsession that inhabited small Discord chat rooms has developed into an international phenomenon.
Is this increased interest in true crime a simple attempt at seeking thrill in a society where so many are numbed by the continuity of everyday life? Or perhaps this need to connect with a killer's psyche suggests something more sinister.
For evolutionary psychologists, the reasoning is clear: our obsession with true crime extends from the role that crimes played during our time as hunter-gatherers. As social creatures it is in our nature to be hyper-aware of crime. According to Emma Berquist, a writer and survivor of a stabbing, impact of these pre-historic instincts in the 21st Century have become increasingly negative. Berquist argues that true crime particularly impacts women, who are made to feel heightened levels of anxiety due to the topics within the genre.
Interestingly, a 2010 study by the University of Illinois found that 70% of true crime reviews on Amazon were written by women. This leads to a larger question: why are women statistically more intrigued by true crime? The crime author, Fran Dorricott, theorises that the ‘largely female audience’ associated with true crime is primarily a result of ‘gender inequality within society’. According to Dorricott, true crime serves to counteract the way in which many women have been taught to act; to ‘restrain their actions, their thoughts, and sometimes even their imaginations’. True crime offers a medium to experience the relief of seeing offender after offender being ‘put behind bars’, and an enhanced sense of security in a time when the criminal justice system seems to be in constant decline.
However, can these fears developed through true crime be validated through reality? Or does true crime act as a further source of otherwise avoidable panic? Recent events point to the former, with the murder of Sarah Everard, who was sexually assaulted and murdered by a police officer in London in March 2021, and others serving to re-ignite well-founded concerns over police and justice failures in tackling violence against women. This could outline a key benefit of true crime: its ability to expose disparities within our society.
Our morbid fascinations with death and murder have been constants throughout human history, from the many thousands who would sit and watch Gladiator Fights at the Colosseum, to the 211 million downloads of the first season of the true crime podcast ‘Serial’. Nevertheless, could the sudden popularity of true crime serve as an enhanced manifestation of a commonality with our primal ancestors? If so, this newfound obsession could act to expose clear issues that underline our society, and thus enhance our awareness of the most vulnerable in society; establishing true crime as a medium to identify underlying issues in our society.