“Our fascination with crime is equaled by our fear of crime.” Later, he noted that “The media understands, if it bleeds, it leads. “Since the ‘50s, we have been bombarded … in the media with accounts of crime stories, and it probably came to real fruition in the ‘70s,” Mantell said. Įven if we’ve been fascinated by crime since the beginning of time, we likely have the media to thank for the uptick in the true crime fad.
True crime obsessed how to#
“We want some insight into the psychology of a killer, partly so we can learn how to protect our families and ourselves," Lost Girls author Caitlin Rother told Hopes & Fears, "but also because we are simply fascinated by aberrant behavior and the many paths that twisted perceptions can take.” 3. We want to figure out what drove these people to this extreme act, and what makes them tick, because we'd never actually commit murder. Even as kids, we're drawn to the tension between good and evil, and true crime embodies our fascination with that dynamic. Elizabeth Rutha, a licensed clinical psychologist at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center in Chicago, told AHC Health News that our fascination begins when we're young. “In every case,” he writes, “there is an assessment to be made about the enormity of evil involved.” This fascination with good versus evil, according to Mantell, has existed forever Dr. Mattiuzzi calls “a most fundamental taboo and also, perhaps, a most fundamental human impulse”-murder. The true crime genre gives people a glimpse into the minds of people who have committed what forensic psychologist Dr. all you do is talk about it and you have posters of it, and you have newspaper article clippings in your desk drawer, I'd be concerned,” he said. “I think our interest in crime serves a number of different healthy psychological purposes.” Of course, there are limits: “If all you do is read about crime and. Michael Mantell, former chief psychologist of the San Diego Police Department, told NPR in 2009. “It says that we're normal and we're healthy,” Dr.
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Because being obsessed with true crime is normal (to a point).įirst things first: There’s nothing weird about being true crime obsessed. Which raises the question: Why are we so obsessed with true crime? Here’s what the experts have to say.
True crime obsessed series#
The genre is so huge that Netflix-whose offerings in this arena include The Keepers, Evil Genius, Wild Wild Country, Making a Murderer, The Staircase, and many more-even created a parody true crime series ( American Vandal). Death to In the Dark and Atlanta Monster, there’s no shortage of true crime podcasts. Investigation Discovery, a hit from when it debuted in 2008, continues to top the ratings (and even throws its own true crime convention, IDCon). Everywhere you turn these days, it seems like there’s a new-and wildly successful-book, podcast, or show devoted to a crime.