I have enjoyed true crime from an extremely young age. I remember being a kid and using the family dial up internet to read wiki pages on serial killera and spree killers. In primary school I was already reading about psychopathy and studying the minds of terrorists.
In the 2010s I noticed a shift online and I blame it on white women, although as of recent, black women have been hopping on the awful trend.
1. A narrowing of topics
In the past (pre-2010), when the main source of true crime was documentary channels, wikipedia pages, and obscure forums, the range of what was discussed was incredibly vast. How many of you know about the twisted case of the Hi-Fi Murders where two guys made a family drink draino and tortured them all night?
en.wikipedia.org
What about the case of 12yo Shanda Sharer who was killed by her friends for fun?
en.wikipedia.org
That wide scope stopped after 2010. True crime is now strictly only about crimes committed by white men mostly against white women (often their own families). The famous cases have become: Chris Watts, Scott Peterson, Anthony Murdaugh. There's nothing interesting about these dudes and they're all samey. Fucking Samuel Little got caught, might have been the WORLD's most prolific serial killer, and it barely made a splash in the true crime scene because he's a black man.
en.wikipedia.org
I miss discovering obscure cases of weird folks with strange motivations. Even when you do find a case, there's hardly any information on it.
2. The moral condemnation
In the past documentaries would focus on the past of the killer and what led to them becoming a monster. Although it wasn't sympathetic, it did offer a psychoanalysis of evil people without resorting to finger-wagging.
That changed with modern true crime content. You see it on r/masskillers. There's hardly any discussion about the psychology of mass killers. It's just insulting their looks and saying how glad they are that they're dead. On youtube you'll find WHITE WOMEN making videos upon videos of killers, and littered throughout the videos is snarky fucking sidenotes and commentary condemning the killer. Like fuck, we all know killing hookers is wrong. Just tell us what he did.
Even if you avoid white women, this kind of mentality has leaked over to all content creators. Very few objective true crime podcasts remain. Last Podcast on the Left is the worst offender. They just spend hours making fun of the killers.
3. The fucking face videos
Old documentaries had images of the killer, their victims, locations. It helped to paint the pictures. Even recreated scenes helped. Modern true crime is white foid in front of camera. Of course she leaves the cut where her cat jumps into onto her lap because its quirky ^_^ okay lets talk about the toybox killer uwu! They wear low cut shirts, tons of make-up, talk about their children, its fucking annoying and its, on god, 90% of true crime. 5% is black women that have jumped onto the trend and the remaining 5% is actual good content.
Podcasts are WORSE. As soon as I turn on a new podcast and its a group of white women I'm out. In short, white women ruined true crime and turned it into a pop culture fad. Now its watered down and a shadow of what it once was.
If you actually want those old school true crime vibes, the cartel violence community is pretty based. There's folks on youtube that study the cartels, their history, and all the execution videos that come out.
In the 2010s I noticed a shift online and I blame it on white women, although as of recent, black women have been hopping on the awful trend.
1. A narrowing of topics
In the past (pre-2010), when the main source of true crime was documentary channels, wikipedia pages, and obscure forums, the range of what was discussed was incredibly vast. How many of you know about the twisted case of the Hi-Fi Murders where two guys made a family drink draino and tortured them all night?
Hi-Fi murders - Wikipedia
What about the case of 12yo Shanda Sharer who was killed by her friends for fun?
Murder of Shanda Sharer - Wikipedia
That wide scope stopped after 2010. True crime is now strictly only about crimes committed by white men mostly against white women (often their own families). The famous cases have become: Chris Watts, Scott Peterson, Anthony Murdaugh. There's nothing interesting about these dudes and they're all samey. Fucking Samuel Little got caught, might have been the WORLD's most prolific serial killer, and it barely made a splash in the true crime scene because he's a black man.
Samuel Little - Wikipedia
I miss discovering obscure cases of weird folks with strange motivations. Even when you do find a case, there's hardly any information on it.
2. The moral condemnation
In the past documentaries would focus on the past of the killer and what led to them becoming a monster. Although it wasn't sympathetic, it did offer a psychoanalysis of evil people without resorting to finger-wagging.
That changed with modern true crime content. You see it on r/masskillers. There's hardly any discussion about the psychology of mass killers. It's just insulting their looks and saying how glad they are that they're dead. On youtube you'll find WHITE WOMEN making videos upon videos of killers, and littered throughout the videos is snarky fucking sidenotes and commentary condemning the killer. Like fuck, we all know killing hookers is wrong. Just tell us what he did.
Even if you avoid white women, this kind of mentality has leaked over to all content creators. Very few objective true crime podcasts remain. Last Podcast on the Left is the worst offender. They just spend hours making fun of the killers.
3. The fucking face videos
Old documentaries had images of the killer, their victims, locations. It helped to paint the pictures. Even recreated scenes helped. Modern true crime is white foid in front of camera. Of course she leaves the cut where her cat jumps into onto her lap because its quirky ^_^ okay lets talk about the toybox killer uwu! They wear low cut shirts, tons of make-up, talk about their children, its fucking annoying and its, on god, 90% of true crime. 5% is black women that have jumped onto the trend and the remaining 5% is actual good content.
Podcasts are WORSE. As soon as I turn on a new podcast and its a group of white women I'm out. In short, white women ruined true crime and turned it into a pop culture fad. Now its watered down and a shadow of what it once was.
If you actually want those old school true crime vibes, the cartel violence community is pretty based. There's folks on youtube that study the cartels, their history, and all the execution videos that come out.
