Author Spotlight
Lily Billingsley
The true crime genre has been around since Dateline’s early days, but as its popularity rises, it’s becoming harder to avoid. With the recent additions of “American Murder: The Family Next Door” and season two of “Unsolved Mysteries” on Netflix, I’m squinting my eyes every time I scroll through my home screen — the true stories of terrifying horrors are way too intense for me.
As Halloween gets closer, it becomes more tempting to satisfy your thrill craving by turning on the latest true crime show to watch a family disappear or learn about an infamous serial killer. It seems like everyone loves a good mystery — but to me, it’s best to stick to the fictional. Watching true stories about people being brutally murdered for entertainment doesn’t sound like the way to get into the fall spirit.
America’s obsession with true crime is anything but entertaining. It raises a moral question about why people use such horrible events for entertainment. The genre has expanded from TV into books, podcasts and YouTube videos. I understand searching for a thrill — don’t get me wrong, I’ve had my “Criminal Minds” phase — but there’s a difference between watching a fictional event and one that actually altered real people’s lives. Watching shows about Ted Bundy and Jeffery Dahmer become a lot less entertaining when you think about the reality for the people involved.
True crime junkies don’t think twice before flipping to their latest mystery, using people’s tragedies as late-night binges. But there’s a difference between reading about a case and using it as your filler in between “The Shining” and “Scream.” Watching documentaries about serial killers shouldn’t be seen as a normal hobby. There’s plenty of other movies out there, ones that don’t leave you questioning if everyone in the Starbucks drive-thru is hiding a dark side.
Days filled with long-term projects and college applications are scary enough alone without coming across the equivalent of a nonfiction slasher movie as I’m looking for entertainment. When I need a break from my overwhelming workload, I’d much rather watch a show with a happy ending than one that keeps the vivid images of a family being killed stuck in my brain. TV is supposed to be a break from reality, not a reminder to lock your doors and check under your bed.
The fact that true crime cases are often cold cases, closed without finding a culprit, makes it hard for viewers to look away as they search for an ending to the story. In my book, that only makes them worse. The idea that there’s a killer on the loose and nothing I can do about it gives me the creeps — and I don’t know how it doesn’t make everyone feel the same way.
In some sense, true crime has its benefits. It’s possible that someone watching a video about an unsolved case could provide some evidence, or a podcast listener could identify a key witness. But most of the time, putting a case in the spotlight only gives the crime, and the criminal, more attention. If I’ve learned anything from “Criminal Minds,” this is often exactly what criminals want — and no matter how much you stress the “infamous,” they’re still being widely talked about.
Many of these programs try to get a “behind the scenes” look at a criminal’s life, whether they were raised poorly or faced a family member’s death. While they are intending to give a look at what drove the criminal to commit the crime, they end up glorifying the criminal and making excuses.
One viewing of “The Visit” was enough for me to not sleep for three weeks, and that’s completely fictional. Not only does the true crime craze make the killers their own kind of celebrity, they’re also genuinely terrifying. It’s a lot more fun to be scared by an obviously-fake blood filled elevator than a serial killer who’s still on the run.
So this Halloween, I’ll be sticking to Disney Plus for my usual Monstober rerun marathon.
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