This is an absolutely fascinating thing to think about. I have so many friends (and an aunt) who are women obsessed with true crime stories, and also fictionalised-but-unsettlingly-real-feeling crime stories, and I've long wondered what is driving it. I also say this as someone who got hooked on "Serial" when it was first airing. But generally, I find true crime deeply frustrating, and I wonder how much of that is a recognisably male response and how much is just my own preferences/biases/obsessions at work.
(I find it frustrating because, yet again, it so often feels like a glorifying and attention-platforming of the worst men in the world, which I guess it is when it's "bad" true crime, ie. sensationalist and predatory true crime? And my reaction to that is usually "oh yay, we're talking about the shittiest men on the planet yet again, why, why can't we stop, why are we still feeding the egos of all these narcissistic monsters", and it makes a voice within me start yelling about how desperately so many men seem to need better role models and "how is this helping?" etc. - and while that's a deeply simplistic reaction, for reasons you addressed in the first part of this piece, it's a really visceral one for me. It genuinely breaks me out in a sweat, even though I know it's blinkered. At the same time, it's more than a little absurd, since my fiction-reading tastes include crime fiction - Ann Cleeves for the win - and I love a fascinatingly awful antagonist as much as anyone - and, as I said, I was ravenous for new episodes of Serial when season 1 was airing.).
Also, there's a related thing I wonder about. I've heard from at least a dozen male friends, and I gather it's a pattern, that men greatly prefer reading non-fiction unless it's sci-fi, fantasy and horror fiction. (Or war fiction, I'm guessing.) There was a big widely-cited Nielsen study a while back that concluded that women massively outbuy men when it comes to fiction (80% of sales, according to this: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/dec/07/why-women-love-literature-read-fiction-helen-taylor) and also that when men read fiction, they tend to read male authors. But mostly, men seem to go for non-fiction - so why not true crime nonfiction? What other forms of nonfiction do women dominate in?
Also, owning a DVD copy of season 2 of "Star Trek: Voyager" is a clear red flag. If they also have "Brave New World" in their bookcase, get the hell out of there. Get out NOW.
This was so good, Laura. Thank you! As a fellow consumer of lots of true crime, I especially liked the conclusion: "True Crime is a kind of recreation. Rather than trying to defend that, it might be a good idea to accept the conflict inherent in it and feel a bit uncomfortable." This rings very true to me.
Also, thanks for the podcast recommendations. There’s a few I have missed and will dive into as soon as I get the chance. I would like to add a recommendation of my own. When I feel that all the true crime gets a little bit too dark, I always turn to the wonderful podcast “Drunk Women Solving Crime”. It’s – as their slogan goes – “true crime with a twist … of lime!” Real cases, loads of fun and a surprisingly good way of getting an insight into crime and punishment throughout history. You find the podcast where you find all other podcasts. Have fun!
"We tend to flatly attribute complex, culturally loaded behaviours to evolutionary psychology alone when we can’t find a more nuanced explanation to satisfy us." Totally with you on this. It astonishes me the level of confidence with which some experts tell us in detail about life "on the savannah" tens of thousands ago, when I think of the difficulty of describing or comprehending what's going on during something as recent as the previous day's visit to the supermarket. I'd agree that it's more a sign of defeat than a moment of insight when such "explanations" are rolled out.
This is an absolutely fascinating thing to think about. I have so many friends (and an aunt) who are women obsessed with true crime stories, and also fictionalised-but-unsettlingly-real-feeling crime stories, and I've long wondered what is driving it. I also say this as someone who got hooked on "Serial" when it was first airing. But generally, I find true crime deeply frustrating, and I wonder how much of that is a recognisably male response and how much is just my own preferences/biases/obsessions at work.
(I find it frustrating because, yet again, it so often feels like a glorifying and attention-platforming of the worst men in the world, which I guess it is when it's "bad" true crime, ie. sensationalist and predatory true crime? And my reaction to that is usually "oh yay, we're talking about the shittiest men on the planet yet again, why, why can't we stop, why are we still feeding the egos of all these narcissistic monsters", and it makes a voice within me start yelling about how desperately so many men seem to need better role models and "how is this helping?" etc. - and while that's a deeply simplistic reaction, for reasons you addressed in the first part of this piece, it's a really visceral one for me. It genuinely breaks me out in a sweat, even though I know it's blinkered. At the same time, it's more than a little absurd, since my fiction-reading tastes include crime fiction - Ann Cleeves for the win - and I love a fascinatingly awful antagonist as much as anyone - and, as I said, I was ravenous for new episodes of Serial when season 1 was airing.).
Also, there's a related thing I wonder about. I've heard from at least a dozen male friends, and I gather it's a pattern, that men greatly prefer reading non-fiction unless it's sci-fi, fantasy and horror fiction. (Or war fiction, I'm guessing.) There was a big widely-cited Nielsen study a while back that concluded that women massively outbuy men when it comes to fiction (80% of sales, according to this: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/dec/07/why-women-love-literature-read-fiction-helen-taylor) and also that when men read fiction, they tend to read male authors. But mostly, men seem to go for non-fiction - so why not true crime nonfiction? What other forms of nonfiction do women dominate in?
Also, owning a DVD copy of season 2 of "Star Trek: Voyager" is a clear red flag. If they also have "Brave New World" in their bookcase, get the hell out of there. Get out NOW.
This was so good, Laura. Thank you! As a fellow consumer of lots of true crime, I especially liked the conclusion: "True Crime is a kind of recreation. Rather than trying to defend that, it might be a good idea to accept the conflict inherent in it and feel a bit uncomfortable." This rings very true to me.
Also, thanks for the podcast recommendations. There’s a few I have missed and will dive into as soon as I get the chance. I would like to add a recommendation of my own. When I feel that all the true crime gets a little bit too dark, I always turn to the wonderful podcast “Drunk Women Solving Crime”. It’s – as their slogan goes – “true crime with a twist … of lime!” Real cases, loads of fun and a surprisingly good way of getting an insight into crime and punishment throughout history. You find the podcast where you find all other podcasts. Have fun!
"We tend to flatly attribute complex, culturally loaded behaviours to evolutionary psychology alone when we can’t find a more nuanced explanation to satisfy us." Totally with you on this. It astonishes me the level of confidence with which some experts tell us in detail about life "on the savannah" tens of thousands ago, when I think of the difficulty of describing or comprehending what's going on during something as recent as the previous day's visit to the supermarket. I'd agree that it's more a sign of defeat than a moment of insight when such "explanations" are rolled out.