At what point do we question the consequences of true crime media?

Shining smiles, practiced cadences, and catchy theme songs. Carefully crafted, compiled narratives catered to the listener in such a way that it’s perfectly digestible and binge worthy. By the time you finish listening to an episode of “My Favorite Murder” you will have listened to two women tell the story of their morning commute, divulge into the details of their new favorite streaming series, and retell the story of a shocking murder.

Launched in 2016, the hosts Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark were met with widespread success – spawning a large fanbase called, “murderinos.” Their podcast spearheaded a new movement across the growing online true crime community – podcasts mixing comedy and murder to take listeners down the rabbit holes of cold cases and unsolved mysteries.

Seeing these podcasts across all platforms spawn into juggernauts is not unfamiliar to the average social media user. You may be familiar with Stephanie Soo and Bailey Sarian, who have found success with true crime mukbangs and true crime makeup tutorials.

At what point do we question the consequences of true crime media? True crime media has amassed tens of millions of dollars and subscribers who keep returning to the humorous commentary of the hosts. At what point does true crime fascination or sometimes obsession become a weapon?

True crime has fallen into the trap of its own creation. The retellings of sensationalized accounts of murder entangled with the comedic relief from the hosts becomes almost appalling. We’ve used victims as clickbait soundbites to draw the listener into subscribing to a podcast that lies behind a paywall.

True crime influencers have cultivated parasocial relationships. They’ve made their subscribers feel like family. The accessibility of true crime content has reduced victim’s stories to background noise for long drives and workout sessions.

TikTok’s #truecrimecommunity hashtag has over 3.6 billion views and the #truecrimeaddict hashtag has over 289.2 million views. TikTok’s user base skews younger, exposing minors to the names and faces of murderers, with many videos romanticizing the actions of the killers and erasing the lives of the victims.

As mass shootings pillage through the United States, we see how the images of murderers and their backstories are always at the forefront of social media discourse, instead of the stories of the victims. There have been over 660 mass shootings in 2022, so far. Over 660 unimaginable horrors, all masked under the onslaught of flowing social media content and articles that oversaturate our feeds every day. It seems that there’s too many numbers, victims, and gunmen to keep track of before they become afterthoughts.

Of all these mass shootings, what continues to be a pattern is the hyper-fixation of the gunmen, their history, and their motives. It scarily mirrors the reporting methods of true crime content, where we learn the names of the perpetrators and their backstory, while the victims disappear.

We can strive for a change in the way we talk about victims and their perpetrators beginning with true crime content creators. Countless content creators are straying away from the humorous commentary, being careful not to romanticize the actions of the murderer and working to amplify the voices of the families of the victims and those who were affected by murder.

We all must rethink the way we consume content and the way it shapes our views on true crime, such as mass shootings. We can choose our true crime media from creators that amplify the stories of the victims, and don’t sensationalize the actions of mass shooters.

Aeriel Pearson is a senior public relations student at the University of South Carolina. She is a part of a student-run campaign called “no name, no fame” that is striving to change the way mass shooters are covered in the media.