True Crime and Youtube Deep Dives

Epsiode10: True Crime and YouTube Deep Dives

I have been procrastinating. It’s the crimes, I started thinking about the boom tenth episode, which is obviously very period prestige crime documentaries are exciting for me. We made it to ten! I experiencing at the moment and what wasn’t sure I was gonna get past three, that says about us as an audience. So, to be honest. Anyway. This excitement without further ado… hasn’t translated into me actually doing anything to make the episode. I did start I’m Alex. This is Pop Culture Boner – the off with a topic but I got side-tracked by podcast edition – and today, I’m thinking the fact that I couldn’t find the film I was about the true crime genre. looking for online. Which set me off on a YouTube rabbit hole, and long story short I should probably preface this by saying – I’ve permanently ruined my algorithm. that I am a person who enjoys true crime. I remember when I was younger… I was looking at my recommended maybe around 10… mum had one of videos, and I can’t even remember what those very cheap reads – the sort of book I clicked or why I clicked it, but I started that you only buy when you’re trying to watching a channel called Nexpo – which like actively carve out time for yourself is short for Nightmare Expo. Nexpo has as a parent, but also you haven’t slept 1.5 million followers, and essentially, he for years, so you don’t want to actually salvages odd pieces of digital ephemera use your brain. Anyway, it was about the from around the internet, usually horror Moors murders, which for the uninitiated, adjacent, and makes videos that explore involved the murder of 5 children aged their meaning, potential explanations between 10 and 17 in Britain in the mid- and personal theories. It’s a little bit like 60s. Their bodies were hidden on the sitting around a campfire listening to Moors, and more than one was never ghost stories, except the person telling recovered. I wasn’t allowed to read it per them has their phone out and is asking if se, but I remember being fascinated by you want to see crime scene photos. the mug shots on the cover and sneaking chapters when mum wasn’t looking. It What I’m trying to tell you is that a) I really cemented a sense of dread in me, don’t know why I clicked it, or why I given that the victims were my age and kept watching, and b) now my YouTube lost forever, but I couldn’t stop reading. recommendations are all like “HAUNTED Which would become something of a MORGUE!” in all caps with 6 exclamation theme when the internet made grim points. But the good news is, I can treasure troves of stories more readily actually classify all this as ‘research’ available. I was a delightful child; in case now, because while I was watching this you were wondering. All this is to say that content, a lot of which draws from actual this podcast is not coming from a place of judgment necessarily. Or at least, any Twitter, the answer seems pretty cut and judgemental tone is very evenly applied dry – it’s a fucked-up thing to use as a to myself. form of entertainment. But like I said, I’m not here to paint with a judgemental True crime as a genre isn’t new, and brush, at least not completely. Generally, neither are the wildly different ways of I think human beings have an interest reporting on it. Compare Truman Capote’s in the grim because we use it as a In Cold Blood to a show like Forensic Files, comparison point for our own lives – for example. Two very different pieces of a sort of proof that we’re going OK, media that ostensibly sit under the true and a note for what to avoid. If you’re crime umbrella. But despite existing as listening to this and going “But Alex, I a genre forever, there’s definitely some hate true crime and horror and gore! This sort of evolutionary boom happening definitely isn’t me!”, ask yourself when now. There’s been a huge increase in the last time you dragged yourself away prestige TV programming in the genre from the 24-hour news cycle was. What’s – true crime is no longer the pulpy read that? Never? You’ve never successfully I picked up as a 10-year-old. It’s not dragged yourself away from the 24-hour necessarily shameful to admit that you news cycle? Congratulations. You’re just spent 5 hours of your life watching content as morbid as the rest of us. about a murder from every angle because it’s kind of in vogue. It’s won awards. It’s kind of tempting to get into a People are talking about it at work. Then discussion on audiences when trying to at the same time, there are strange little think through true crime. Because when pockets of the internet dedicated to crime you look at the audience statistics, it’s in much different ways. They fluctuate a genre that is overwhelmingly popular between devotional, investigative and with women. There’s a 2010 study by morbidly curious; all of which have their staff at the University of Illinois which own degrees of insidious undertone, indicates that some 70% of reviews left depending on who’s doing what and on true crime books on Amazon are left where. So, I thought we could take a by women. Given that women are often look at true crime in mainstream media, more likely to be the victims or survivors vs. true crime on the internet. What’s of violent crime, it feels like there’s a line different and what stays the same? to draw there. Like maybe women want to know what’s possible in the world so that One of the things that hangs over the they have a better chance of surviving it. genre of true crime in the black and Or something. white land of social media discourse is a question of ethics – how ethical is it to But human motivations are complicated, consume the worst moments of someone’s and like I said, the genre is old. Like one life as a form of entertainment? Even of the interesting things I learned while more dubious, how ethical is it to focus researching this episode was that way on the perpetrators of these crimes back in 1897, William Randolph Hearst, themselves? And look, when you lay it in a bid to sell more newspapers than out like that in 140 characters or less on Joseph Pulitzer, formed something called the Murder Squad, who were essentially in failing to hide the grim details behind a roving band of reporters who basically slick production values, at the very least did police work while also operating they manage to keep the audience close outside the law and packaging it up for to the reality of what they’re watching. waiting public. The point is, audience High-brow true crime, she argues, is thirst has been there forever. So, I think engaging in the same story-telling tactics, rather than asking “is this OK?”, it’s but with more real-world consequence. more interesting to interrogate what’s I’ll give you a quick quote – she says: changed in the production values and its impact on audiences. “That is maybe what irks me the most about true crime with highbrow Writing for Vulture in 2018, Alice Bolin, pretensions. It appeals to the same vices author of Dead Girls: Essays on Surviving as traditional true crime, and often trades an American Obsession, explores the in the same melodrama and selective wave of so-called prestige true crime TV storytelling, but its consequences can be and the distinction between high-brow more extreme. Adnan Syed was granted and low-brow true crime. The high-brow a new trial after Serial brought attention she refers to are things like Netflix series to his case; Avery (of Making a Murderer) Making a Murderer, or podcast Serial, was denied his appeal, but people which is often credited with kicking off the involved in his case have nevertheless current wave of true-crime obsession and been doxxed and threatened. I’ve remains the most downloaded podcast of come to believe that addictiveness and all time. Low-brow is the type of thing advocacy are rarely compatible. If they you’ll be familiar with if you’ve ever were, why would the creators of Making clicked past Making a Murderer on your a Murderer have advocated for one white Netflix list – things like Forensic Files for man, when the story of being victimized example, or titles that are even more by a corrupt police force is common to so bluntly descriptive, like Occult Crimes, or many people across the U.S., particularly Nurses Who Kill. people of colour?”

I’m something of a connoisseur of these It’s a fair call – audiences are very types of low-brow crime shows – I’m interested in the individual instances not saying it’s a good thing, but I don’t of crime, explored in great detail, but sleep much and they follow the kind of prestige TV is significantly less interested repetitive formula that doesn’t require in the systemic problems these reflect. If you to concentrate to keep up. It can be I was being generous, I would say this 3am and you can be fully zoned out, and has something to do with the fact making tune in just in time to have the entire the stories individual humanises the story reiterated for you complete with re- consequences of systemic problems. But enactment and bad wig. It’s the lowest then that doesn’t really account for the of low-brow, but I have consumed just choice of subject in things like Making a so, so much of it. Bolin feels that these Murderer. shows are somehow a more honest watch than the new wave of high-brow crime – The other point Bolin raises about real- world consequences is something that’s the morning of the murder to try and really interesting to me, particularly prove that it can’t be done. in the aftermath of my deep YouTube rabbit hole. Beyond impacting the That’s not to say that there haven’t been legal proceedings for those already in online fandoms for true crime prior to this, jail, shows like Serial, which feature a though I doubt they would characterise particularly intimate tone, also had the themselves that way and honestly, I consequence of turning some audience don’t know if it’s really fair for me to members into amateur sleuths. They do so either. True crime communities can viewed the ambiguous nature of the crime be generally divided into two categories as laid out by the show as somewhat – those concerned with the victims and of a challenge – they could investigate those concerned with the perpetrators. along with the show, develop their own The first category are the type of puzzle theories, and do their own research. This solvers I mentioned earlier – they seem is, of course, not necessarily the intention to be motivated largely by a sense of of the show – Serial presented itself as a justice, they want to right a wrong or serious, in depth look at a crime and its reach a conclusion. I think the most consequences. But the ambiguity served famous example of this type of person not only to make the show incredibly is Michelle McNamara. Michelle ran the addictive, it also served to generate blog True Crime Diary for many years. a type of fandom. And that fandom True Crime Diary’s mission according to operated in the way that most do – they its website was: examined and re-examined the content, put forward their own ideas, argued and “…to find the angle others have participated. overlooked… True Crime Diary is not interested in looking back at notorious It seems weird use a word like fandom in criminals and saying, wow. We’re this context. Online fandoms for TV are interested in looking at unfolding cases normally discussing fictional characters and asking, who?” – making corrections, projecting their feelings. The source material becomes If the name sounds familiar, it’s because like a puzzle that fandoms are trying to Michelle McNamara was responsible for solve. They pull it apart over and over several major breaks in the Golden State again to find new angles and eventually Killer case. Joseph James DeAngelo, make their own version of perfect. This the Golden State Killer, was a former kind of intense online fandom applied police officer responsible for over 100 to true crime has the same effect – burglaries, at least 50 known rapes people dissect the evidence presented and 13 murders in California from to them over and over to try and reach a 1973 to 1986. McNamara was fixated conclusion. Except instead of writing Sex on his crimes because there was such and the City fan fiction where they’re a an overwhelming amount of evidence, group of lesbians trying to not sleep with including DNA, fingerprints and voice each other’s exes or whatever, people recordings, but no conviction. Before her are driving the route the killer took on death in 2016, she was working on a book, which would eventually be released Broll notes that members of this online in 2018 as I’ll Be Gone in the Dark. I’ve community participated in it in ways obviously read the book – I wasn’t lying that mirrored more traditional fandoms, about being into true crime – and in it where they divided out the two shooters she references the hundreds of internet into character archetypes and developed sleuths who helped her cause. People theories in relation to the massacre. They whose motivations were simultaneously had developed a whole community on a sense of justice and a burning need Reddit around their idolisation of this to get to put all the pieces together to specific school shooting. Now, I realise reach a conclusion. In fact, part of her that to those of you who are not Extremely book was finished posthumously by one Online, the idea of that kind of community of these self-styled digital detectives. existing on a fairly popular social media Though this is a famous case with a very network is probably so abhorrent that it public outcome, it’s not an isolated online borders on incomprehensible. I want to community. It’s an example of something assure you that you’re probably never that is surprisingly widespread. actually that far away from it. I did some accidental clicking on Tumblr once and But when public interest in tweaked by about three steps from the completely something that has become as much of innocuous place I started, I ended up a cultural phenomenon as Serial did, the on a blog that had Dylan Roof, the Nazi amateur sleuthing has less desirable piece of shit who killed 9 people at a consequences, with people reaching out bible study in one of the oldest black to witnesses and family members who churches in Charleston, in one of those initially refused to participate in the flower crown edits people usually do for series, and harassing public officials to boy bands with the caption “baby boy”. follow up their own leads. These people just exist, and are happily publicly posting on the internet. Then there’s the flip side – people who are primarily concerned with the What I thought was particularly perpetrators. The people who look back interesting about Broll’s study was at the notorious criminals and say wow, that many of the people involved in the as True Crime Diary puts it. Although community seemed to be people who were often its less of a wow, and more of the coming to terms with the consequences of kind of adoration typically reserved for Columbine – they were American school attractive A-List celebrities. Ryan Broll students who had learned about the calls this phenomenon ‘Dark Fandom’ – event in school and were fascinated by its that is “communities of fans who identify impact on their daily lives; or they were with or otherwise celebrate those who people who were young at the time of the have committed heinous acts, such as crime and who had been deeply impacted mass or serial murderers”. Broll’s by seeing the waves of reporting. It may work is specifically examining self- not be the case for every so-called dark identified ‘Columbiners’ - that’s people fandom, but there definitely appears to who are obsessed or enamoured with be an element of trying to make it make the Columbine school shooting of 1999. sense. I can’t tell whether I remember Columbine happening, or whether the point of honesty that Bolin was referring security footage from inside the school to. These clips don’t inspire a fandom of is now just such a ubiquitous part of the problem solvers, but they don’t idolise reporting, that I’ve just integrated it into the perpetrators either. Instead, they’re my memory, but the horror of seeing the part of the footage the 15 second news teenagers huddled under tables while clip cuts – the 5 seconds later where you their classmates stalk through automatic see him open fire. These home-cut look- weapons is something that lives in and-sees are an invitation not to flinch. my brain now. So, on some level, I can An acknowledgement that the kind of understand the desire to hyper focus on reporting that we get in both highbrow and it – to try and understand it, even when lowbrow true crime is actually designed no meaning really exists. to give you a terrified thrill. By watching, it’s almost an acknowledgement that the Which brings me back to the YouTube editing works. You wanted to see more. rabbit hole – I mentioned at the beginning that this channel I had been watching, Alright… that’s that. Kind of a heavier Nexpo, often picked weird pieces of episode for the 10th one, but an interesting digital ephemera as its subject. They have thing to think about nonetheless. I a series called Disturbing things from actually have a whole separate train of around the internet, which does exactly thought about Netflix docuseries and what it says on the tin. Intercut between their special brand of horror, but maybe weird internet art projects that form part that’s another episode. Speaking of since of bigger alternate reality games, and we’ve reached 10, I wanted to take this clips claiming to have captured ghosts time to say a thank you to my producer moving furniture, are things like a murder Wes first of all – this thing would sound caught in the background of a SnapChat, awful without him. And secondly a thank or the dispatch call from someone quietly you to you, for listening. This is fun for begging police to please come quickly me to make, so I’m glad I’m not just because there was someone in the house talking to myself. If you’ve been enjoying before a voiceover tells you that the it, Wes and I would appreciate it if you caller was found dead in their home. I subscribed and left us a rating or review was struck by how much video and audio on Apple Podcasts. Mainly so that I don’t of crime in action was just available on ask you to do it every episode. Because the internet to be sliced together into a I hate it. Makes me feel weird. Anyway, video supercut and put on YouTube. When if you want to have an appropriately we’re thinking about high-brow and low- socially distanced conversation about brow in true crime, the instinct is to say Forensic Files, come and find me at the that this doesn’t fall into either category. pub. Peace. It’s not well-cut enough to be prestige high-brow and it’s not camp enough to be low-brow fun.

So, what is it? I think, as horrifying as it might be to admit – this might be the This episode premiered on 12th August 2020.

Episode written by Alex Johnson and produced by Wes Fahey.

Theme tune by Wes Fahey. (Soundcloud: lee snipes)

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