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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   2824 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 24, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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As someone who sort of developed a moderate interest in true crime discussions, I was surprised to later find out that apparently the consumers of true crime literature, videos and other media are overwhelmingly middle-class suburban women / cat ladies. Then it occurred to me that my surprise isn't warranted, as it's natural that the people most likely to fantasize about true crime are the ones most secluded from its reality. This view of mine was confirmed when I've heard the argument that, supposedly, this sort of true crime media is much less popular in Latin America, the reason being that crime is much more of a daily reality there, so people are less prone to fantasize about it.

Is this argument correct in your view?

Is this argument correct in your view?

No.

True Crime is primarily a meme, it's a genre. Any debate that centers primarily around a genre, rather than centering primarily around characteristics, is going to be a debate around classification.

I agree with @coffee-enjoyer that comparing against Latin American women is problematic because they might consume similar characteristics of content in different genres. In the same way it would be silly in the 1990s to say "White kids are listening to Punk Rock and Thrash Metal, Black kids aren't, does this mean white kids are angrier than Black kids?" No, it means angry Black kids are listening to gangster rap (as are many white kids).

True Crime is just a modern form of the ghost story, the horror film, Stephen King, etc. True Crime is popular predominantly among women because it is popular predominantly among women, the content creators are designing their products around their female audience. True Crime podcasts and associated properties got really popular after Serial season 1, which I listened to multiple times, it was really a brilliant podcast possibly the GOAT. That's what created the modern form. Since then, I've tried alternative podcasts that try to recapture that feel, and they're increasingly female-coded, in ways that put me off the genre. I want to like it, but I just can't get into it, the feminine touches are too much (I should note, I have a high tolerance for feminine media, I regularly watch The Bachelor).

I think men consume the same content, just in different forms, whether it is video games or horror movies or creepypasta or whatever.

True Crime is popular predominantly among women because it is popular predominantly among women, the content creators are designing their products around their female audience.

Sorry but that explains nothing.

Evaporative cooling. You start with a population that is 55/45 F/M, podcasts that cater to women in various ways will do better but turn some men off, it drifts to 60/40, the process repeats with increasing speed.

True Crime satisfies the mostly female need for wives’ tales and gossip — women evolved to keep their bodies and character safe from bad men. It’s true that some women also fantasize about serial killers but this is because of the paradoxical evolutionary desire to fuck really good killers who also happen to be handsome and charismatic. Why is this not found in Latin America? Their culture still has good old wives’ tales and gossiping, and they have soap operas where the characters’ continually fall into calamity.

It seems that the final part of your comment is lost. Anyway, yeah, I can accept the argument about old wives' tales and gossiping, as Latin American societies are less individualistic and more family-focused.

Then it occurred to me that my surprise isn't warranted, as it's natural that the people most likely to fantasize about true crime are the ones most secluded from its reality.

This theory would predict that middle- to upper-class men would consume true crime content at about the same rate as middle- to upper-class women (its natural demographic). Middle- to upper-class men may be slightly more likely to be victims of crime than middle- to upper-class women, but I can't imagine the relative crime victimisation rates are distinct enough to explain the differing rates at which they consume true crime content.

I think true crime content is rather ghoulish and exploitative, and the people who consume it are morbidly fascinated by death and violence. But because they're mostly women, a woke just-so story must be contrived to explain why they consume this content without casting them in an unfavourable light. Hence "women are so scared of being raped or murdered that they consume true crime content as a coping strategy" or whatever. If it was mostly men consuming this content, people would correctly be calling them out for being ghoulish.

I think true crime content is rather ghoulish and exploitative, and the people who consume it are morbidly fascinated by death and violence.

Hence the South Park episode pointing this out about a decade ago.

God damn, those boys do not miss.

Hence "women are so scared of being raped or murdered that they consume true crime content as a coping strategy" or whatever.

I also assume they love reading and hearing about cold cases from decades ago, because it serves to reinforce their view that Western patriarchy was always a brutal hellscape where rape victims were basically the punching bags of society etc.

https://reason.com/2023/09/23/true-crime-distorts-the-truth-about-crime/ an article I found interesting about why the gender balance skews the way it does.

Thanks, that was an interesting read. Funny how that Knox story reinforces any prejudice one might have about Italy.

Eh, don’t think so.

It’s more consistent with general female hybristophilia.

Middle class suburban American cat ladies, who code white, being into serial killers is a “man-bites-dog” story in comparison to the “dog-bites-man” story of black American women being into thugs (as Will and Jada Smith might tell you) or latinas (whether born in the US or Latin America) being into cartel members or their derivatives.

Putting a “white” in front of “women” is oftentimes a way to Notice things about women without getting Canceled. After all, white women are among the white people of women, non-Asian minorities, and the LGBTQ+.

My observation isn't about hybristophilia per se. It's broadly that a demographic largely secluded from the daily reality of societal violence and brutality is prone to consuming media content in general (not just true crime related stuff) that is exceedingly violent and pathological.

I don't think that's correct. It seems explainable by the classic "people vs things" distinction. True crime is fundamentally interpersonal drama.

This article cites a Pew poll saying that while most true crime podcast fans in the US are women, a majority are black or Latino rather than white.

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