By Elisa Penha

Normal People Scare Me. Tumblr Sexyman and school shooter Tate Langdon of American Horror Story: Murder House dons his soon-to-be iconic t-shirt with this once eerie, now pretentious text as he takes a melodramatic therapy session with his girlfriend’s father. 

Evan Peters is a powerhouse. He has put on a wide array of passionate and mind-bendingly fantastic performances, though what is often noted about him is how eerily well he is able to portray the vilest characters humanity has been able to offer. Over the course of his decorated career, Peters has played over ten killers, ranging from aggressively right-wing, racist killers, undead ghost killers, several real serial killers, and an unforgiving kidnapper while guest starring on an episode of Criminal Minds. Half of these roles have been courtesy of director and producer Ryan Murphy, the other half owed to an unsettling typecast that Peters has somehow earned himself. Peters’ adeptness at playing such roles dazzles the screens of millions, yet has also deeply damaged him to upkeep. In seemingly unknown interviews, Peters talks about how he rues repeatedly being asked to act these roles and how he has been sent into winding, inescapable depressions in the aftermaths of filming. More recently and infamously, Peters’ has described the ‘dark places’ he had to remain encased in, in order to play serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Additionally, he stated that it was only thanks to a sympathetic crew that he was able to keep himself from a self-induced catatonic state of insanity. This alone terrifies me: that one’s perception of self can be so thoroughly altered by merely acting as such a monstrous person that they become unrecognizable. That the consumption of an evil persona is able to blur the lines between what is real and what is not. 

I have been an avid consumer of true crime for years. Listening to accounts of vivid disembowelment over my breakfast through a podcast, laughing along to stories of serial murder with Shane Madej and Ryan Bergara of Buzzfeed Unsolved, and watching crime documentaries as background chatter while I did homework. It was not uncommon to glance up from my math problems to see a cascade of blood gushing from the pierced neck of a stab victim. As with many, the horrors of humanity have become intrinsically intertwined with my daily life. 

A problem I believe arises through the consumption of true crime is how closely it mirrors fiction in the mediums which it is told. Rarely is true crime content framed as documenting a case. Instead, it is done in a similar vein to telling spooky ghost stories to children around a campfire with a flashlight shining unflatteringly at your chin. We detach ourselves from the victims meticulously so that there is no longer a human connection in the gross and often comedic repetition of their stories. This needs to be reframed in order to respectfully detail true crime, but at the end of the day, what amount of respect can really exist in the recounting of such morbid events? Perhaps the issue lies in the time allotted between each tragedy happening and when media on it is created. But how long is ever long enough? Until everybody related to the primary victims dies? Is waiting on people to die in order to turn their torment into content any more dutiful? I’ve grown increasingly weary of rewatching my favourite episodes of Unsolved: True Crime. I feel uneasy even having a favourite case altogether. It is dystopian to judge  stories of murder on a basis of entertainment. It is dystopian, too, how the higher entertainment value often goes to the grittiest and most awful of these stories. We thrive on the gravity of human suffering which is both unspeakably strange and exploitative. Decisions on the ethics of true crime are most generally made without any input from the victims themselves. For example, diving once again into something topical, we now know that the families of Dahmer’s victims were not consulted before being cast and portrayed in the new Netflix series. The shock of seeing their own testimonies acted back to them was consequently deeply traumatic. This, alongside rampant sexualization and sympathy of Dahmer, makes the entire entity of the television show a crude force that is not being dealt with in the delicate way that such subject matter should. The people depicting true crime media are not responsible enough to manage the beasts they unleash whenever a new interpretation of a case is sent into the public eye. 

Our society needs to release or reframe the idea of redemption. The focus of true crime is often unintentionally offering perspective on a person whose side was unnecessary to hear, even with some saying that their crimes could have been prevented by victims, had systems caught on to their malice sooner. This is common in the absolvement of all kinds of abusers. I believe it is impossible to recount true crime in a way that does not exploit victims. Even in the rare case that a victim consents, the public will turn their abuse on its head. A la: this killer only killed due to social ostracism or bullying, or this killer did not understand what they were doing and was misguided by their people. Whether or not these facts reign true, they are almost always weaponized rather than looked into and remedied. Another mistake of true crime is the framing of stories as though there should be a debate on the accountability of victims. It should not have to be said that the public’s opinions regarding whether or not  someone deserved to die is sick; a twisted morality game in which fans of true crime clamour onto high horses. One cannot be an expert in true crime. No matter how many cases you know inside and out, or how much knowledge you have on the processes of an autopsy, there is nothing that can equip a person to pass judgement on different crimes which happen for entirely different reasons—all of which need to be given individual and unbiased attention. 

Desensitization is a lofty term—a medical one. It originated as a form of therapy, and now socially means to no longer be sensitive to any given agent—usually violence. I do not know if I would say I am desensitized to true crime, or that it does not horrify me or make me uncomfortable. However, approaching it from a different perspective often makes me ponder how strange my interest really is. Why am I able to find entertainment in the real-life horrors of people? What does that say about me and my empathetic capacity? I do not wish to lament about how violence in the media corrupts the mind. We have heard nagging parents speak ill of video games for far too long for it to be news. It’s preachy and unnecessary to outlaw violence as though it cannot ever be consumed critically despite some proven negative effects. However, the fashion in which intake of violent media is consumed has been changing with the accessibility of real-life tragedy. Horror is becoming closer to us than ever before. Social media enables us to very regularly consume traumatic material online and encourages us to engage with it no matter how uneducated we may be. To be constantly exposed to gruelling media is bound to affect the way we react toward human suffering, causing us to be unphased by what we should normally be terrified of. True crime only furthers this phenomenon. True crime YouTubers have become notorious for intercutting their dark tales with upbeat, bright sponsorships—a jarring shift in tone that continues to weaken the boundary in what the mind is capable of intaking. Being numb to true crime is not a bragging right, nor is it the same kind of lack-of-fear one may boast about after not having screamed on a rollercoaster. Instead, it is evidence of a deep absence of compassion. I worry about the effects that true crime will have in the way it is becoming catered to younger demographics. The radicalization of preteens, namely white preteen boys, is an increasingly volatile situation. As dark layers of the internet continue to pull in young boys to the throws of radical racism and misogyny, the convenience of true crime and lack of nuance in its presentation will inevitably lead to more heinous acts of violence which stem from the way this media seeps into and alters the mind. The pantheon of Evan Peters is a breeding ground for normalizing and romanticizing violent acts, and the fantastical way these stories are told are adding a layer of whimsy and underdog justice to otherwise murderous people. 

The human consciousness is unbelievably fragile. More so, it is malleable. Personality isa fleeting concept which ebbs and flows based on experience rather than internal nature. Ideas such as maturity are not innate and instead fabricated as a result of extenuating circumstances, whether that be trauma or simply good parenting. I am unsure whether I find it comforting or unsettling to think that most of my so-called goodness—my morality—is of my own volition. After all, morality, too, is not inherent. It may not seem as such, but it is a conscious decision every day to be a person that abides by a moral code: to do good and not harm. One could just as easily choose to do the opposite. You are not bad for watching true crime. I am not bad for having once been enthralled by it. However, it is necessary in the current climate of the world to re-examine why it is so alluring in the first place, how wrong the indulging is, and focus on what steps can be taken to more respectfully represent the ruined lives of victims and families. 

The world of true crime as it appears today online is one that relies on the fleeting nature of morality and how scarily easy it is for that to become a flippable switch. That anybody—yes, anybody—can become the charming killer-next-door if pushed too far. True crime is not supposed to feel far away. It is meant to make you fear the intrusive capability of the average person, and more underlyingly, fear yourself. Rather, confront yourself. Confront the unthinkable idea that maybe it could be you—not necessarily as the predator, but the victim. Humans are hardwired with crushing individualism. We think we are untouchable. Sure, this happens to others, but it could never happen to me. You’d never think it could be you on the opposite end of a killer’s blade until you are. True crime works at dismantling this complex, but the ways in which it operates can be far more sinister than the content itself. 

 It could be you, true crime croons. It will be you.