"True Crime", "empathy", and libidinal indulgence.
Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2023 9:16 pm
I recently enjoyed the Netflix programme Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story (ridiculous title). The purpose of this work of propaganda was to once again launder the tiresome hostilities of the Black Lives Matter movement (hundreds of years old), as they did at the time of the murders, by attaching it to the naturally interesting story and character of Jeffrey Dahmer. Overall message was pretty simple: Dahmer was repeatedly given a slap on the wrist and released while fat POC could only cross their arms and sigh as their warnings were ignored by the pigs, resulting in a trail of Black Bodies. A tragedy of systemic racism which is with us to this day! Luckily for me, the magic of streaming technology meant it was possible to just skip through all the anti-cop and "Hidden Figures" type shit and just enjoy the cool depictions of our hero Jeff. The Japanese dub was excellent.
My intention is not to focus on either this piece of media in particular, or the real-life Dahmer case, it's just that the bad parts illustrate so well for us the expectations of consumers.
Have you ever spoken to fans of the True Crime genre and what were your impressions? In my experience they present themselves as impartial observers or as very "empathetic".
Unfortunately the Jaakko Järvinen classic "Horrible Facts About Women" video is gone from YouTube at the moment (I have it downloaded somewhere and will try to get it up in time for International Women's Day tomorrow), as the point regarding the vicarious titillation of Survival Horror is very applicable to the people I have encountered that would fit the description of True Crime fan.
I'm only partly suggesting that the moralizing or phony stoicism is a cover for this pornographic interest.
The form of True Crime does seem to me to be distinct from other common onanistic fads such as the urge to see Ukrainian bloodshed (actually, do normies still care about this?), etc.
Overall I think they believe themselves to be sincere.
My intention is not to focus on either this piece of media in particular, or the real-life Dahmer case, it's just that the bad parts illustrate so well for us the expectations of consumers.
Have you ever spoken to fans of the True Crime genre and what were your impressions? In my experience they present themselves as impartial observers or as very "empathetic".
Unfortunately the Jaakko Järvinen classic "Horrible Facts About Women" video is gone from YouTube at the moment (I have it downloaded somewhere and will try to get it up in time for International Women's Day tomorrow), as the point regarding the vicarious titillation of Survival Horror is very applicable to the people I have encountered that would fit the description of True Crime fan.
I'm only partly suggesting that the moralizing or phony stoicism is a cover for this pornographic interest.
The form of True Crime does seem to me to be distinct from other common onanistic fads such as the urge to see Ukrainian bloodshed (actually, do normies still care about this?), etc.
Overall I think they believe themselves to be sincere.