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Monday Mini: The Retraumatization of Crime Victims · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Stephane.
0:07
Speaker 1: Never told your protection of I Heart Radio. Okay, Annie,
0:19
Speaker 1: I have a question for you, and we've talked about
0:20
Speaker 1: it before, and I don't know if you actually have
0:23
Speaker 1: one that we don't know about, but I'm still gonna ask,
0:27
Speaker 1: in the deepest, darkest secrets of secrets, what is one
0:31
Speaker 1: of your true, true guilty pleasures that we your friends
0:36
Speaker 1: might not exactly know about or no folly about. How
0:39
Speaker 1: you're going for the deep dark secrets? Yeah, yeah, I
0:46
Speaker 1: feel I feel like I'm pretty open about my enjoyments.
0:52
Speaker 1: I know That's why I said this. I think, as
0:56
Speaker 1: we've recently discussed, it's not really a deep dark secret,
0:59
Speaker 1: but perhaps it's like that I do actually read and
1:02
Speaker 1: write romance, which I think is just something I was
1:05
Speaker 1: surprised by. But I was finally like, wait a minute,
1:08
Speaker 1: and my fan fiction predilections probably surprised some people because
1:13
Speaker 1: I think they know the basics, they don't know the specifics.
1:17
Speaker 1: So I do read like slash um even though I'm
1:21
Speaker 1: there for the emotion. But I think that surprises some
1:23
Speaker 1: people because they're like, wait a minute, you do so
1:25
Speaker 1: against romance? Why not against it. It's just not my thing, right,
1:29
Speaker 1: And then I read a lot of I read a
1:30
Speaker 1: lot of angsty things, but I read a lot of
1:33
Speaker 1: like recovery. I read a lot of like healing, dramatic
1:39
Speaker 1: recovery stories, which I think, I think some people when
1:44
Speaker 1: I tell them I like angst, they think it's just sad, sad, sad,
1:47
Speaker 1: and that's the end. But it's gotta usually it's got
1:51
Speaker 1: some kind of like recovery healing comfort element. Again, like,
1:57
Speaker 1: I don't think I've been super secretive about this. It's
1:59
Speaker 1: just like I usually I am pretty broad, right, But
2:03
Speaker 1: I did have this conversation with some of my friends
2:05
Speaker 1: who read fan fiction lately, and they're like, wait, you
2:07
Speaker 1: read that, so you surprise them. You continue to surprise.
2:12
Speaker 1: I do. I do. I'll try to think of because
2:16
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's something else. I've read some pretty dark stuff,
2:20
Speaker 1: for sure. I've read some like modern a you, alternate universe,
2:27
Speaker 1: serial killer stuff, which is relative to what we're talking
2:29
Speaker 1: about today. I've read, say, I've read some in quotes
2:33
Speaker 1: strange dark things. Yeah. I find that interesting that you automatically,
2:39
Speaker 1: when you think of guilty pleasures, you think of fan fiction,
2:41
Speaker 1: no matter what no matter what, I like that for me,
2:44
Speaker 1: it has some like interesting things where I have ritualistic
2:47
Speaker 1: things almost but where I wake up in the morning,
2:50
Speaker 1: I come and get my coffee, Like the first thing
2:52
Speaker 1: I do is make coffee, go, take peaches out, come
2:56
Speaker 1: back upstairs, and then I will sit in the dark
2:59
Speaker 1: on the corner of my couch, have my coffee ready
3:02
Speaker 1: to go, curl up in a ball, and just play
3:04
Speaker 1: like a couple of my phone games that I really love,
3:07
Speaker 1: and of course I found a new one that I'm playing,
3:08
Speaker 1: and I'll just sit there in silence, and we'll do
3:11
Speaker 1: this for a good two hours, which probably is not
3:13
Speaker 1: the greatest for being a phone addict as I am,
3:17
Speaker 1: and I realized I've become really bad about it, but
3:20
Speaker 1: that's one of my things that I do. A complete
3:22
Speaker 1: silence I don't even like and I need noise to
3:25
Speaker 1: typically distract me so that I don't feel so alone
3:29
Speaker 1: or empty these moments in the morning. I don't do that.
3:32
Speaker 1: And I was like, huh, that's an interesting, interesting thing.
3:35
Speaker 1: But then also when I watched TV or when I
3:39
Speaker 1: watched series and I watched them on repeat, y'all, I
3:42
Speaker 1: think we all know this. My deep pleasure is to
3:45
Speaker 1: try to find the actor and connect them to the
3:47
Speaker 1: other episodes. So I am very quick to like look
3:51
Speaker 1: up and then go down these rabbit holes of who
3:53
Speaker 1: belongs to what, And I love it. And I don't
3:56
Speaker 1: ever remember their name. I just know their face and
3:58
Speaker 1: then I'm like, that's from this show, dudes from that
4:00
Speaker 1: show and connecting like the universes that way. And I
4:04
Speaker 1: don't know if that's a guilty pleasure or something that
4:06
Speaker 1: I definitely do. That's like, that's weird, Okay, that's all,
4:11
Speaker 1: but I love it. But then I also have other
4:13
Speaker 1: like really big like I love just sitting in bed
4:17
Speaker 1: all day, sure, just being like the other day when
4:22
Speaker 1: it was snowing here, I said, in my bed all
4:24
Speaker 1: day because it was so cold, I refused to get
4:26
Speaker 1: out of bed and had everything around me. I ate
4:29
Speaker 1: soup in my like bed everything. That's part of my
4:33
Speaker 1: guilty pleasure. I also saw that was a neurodiversient thing
4:36
Speaker 1: that I was like, maybe I need to go and
4:37
Speaker 1: look this up, where I just kind of like, if
4:39
Speaker 1: I've had overwhelming things happen, I have to stay in
4:42
Speaker 1: my bed for a day and I'm like, huh, this
4:45
Speaker 1: doesn't feel very adult ish of me. Yeah, yeah, I've
4:50
Speaker 1: I've actually had that thought a lot lately, to where
4:53
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't a lot of things I do
4:56
Speaker 1: don't feel adult, and then I get an argument with
4:59
Speaker 1: myself about does that matter and what does that mean?
5:01
Speaker 1: And should I worry about that? So I understand I've
5:04
Speaker 1: had I've had debates in my mind about that. I've also,
5:08
Speaker 1: I think I mentioned I've started going I have a
5:13
Speaker 1: Galaxy Projector, so I have started like I'll lay in
5:17
Speaker 1: bed and watch the Galaxy Projector and listen to classical
5:20
Speaker 1: music and read fan fiction. And that feels like the
5:22
Speaker 1: most indulgent thing I've allowed myself to do. And it
5:28
Speaker 1: was so it's so nice. I'm so happy when it,
5:30
Speaker 1: Like I'm like, Okay, tonight, I'm gonna devote at least
5:34
Speaker 1: one hour because I time it on the Galaxy Projector
5:38
Speaker 1: turns off automatically, so sort of time it. But it
5:41
Speaker 1: does feel very very nice. It feels like I'm carving
5:45
Speaker 1: out a space because I'm really bad about just indulging
5:49
Speaker 1: in a guilty pleasure. I'm I'm always like, you should
5:52
Speaker 1: be doing this right, right, So it's it's nice. I'm
5:57
Speaker 1: trying to like really carve out the space for like
6:00
Speaker 1: for this one hour. Forget about that, right, it's about
6:04
Speaker 1: doing this thing that you finally relaxing and really, yeah,
6:21
Speaker 1: and you know what, we do need to come back
6:22
Speaker 1: and talk about why the term guilty pleasure is such
6:25
Speaker 1: a double edged sword and it's really unfair to those
6:27
Speaker 1: who are so busy and so caught up in being
6:30
Speaker 1: in a world of busy that we forget to take
6:32
Speaker 1: time for ourselves, which we love. So that term in
6:35
Speaker 1: itself is really negating of what we truly need and
6:38
Speaker 1: whether or not we enjoy it as long as it's
6:40
Speaker 1: you know, not harming anybody, why not. But the reason
6:44
Speaker 1: that we are talking about guilty pleasures, another one of
6:46
Speaker 1: my guilty pleasures has been going down the dark hole
6:50
Speaker 1: of serial killers or true crime related things like s
6:53
Speaker 1: VU and criminal minds, which all play off of real
6:57
Speaker 1: stories and you get a different version. But it's really
7:00
Speaker 1: kind of dark in itself. And we did want to
7:03
Speaker 1: talk about this. But first, yes, obviously we're gonna be
7:05
Speaker 1: talking about a little bit of about the horrifics of
7:08
Speaker 1: killing murder victims and trauma within that We're not going
7:11
Speaker 1: to go into specific cases. We're definitely not going to
7:13
Speaker 1: delve into what happened or any of those stories. We
7:16
Speaker 1: are just mentioning it, so just go ahead, but that
7:18
Speaker 1: at the top, And yeah, we've talked a lot about
7:20
Speaker 1: true crime and it's overall popularity, especially for women. In fact,
7:25
Speaker 1: one study shows that women make up a ground of
7:28
Speaker 1: the listenership slash viewerships for this genre. So yes, women
7:33
Speaker 1: are all involved. And of course we if you want
7:35
Speaker 1: to hear more about that statistic, we have a couple
7:37
Speaker 1: of episodes for you to check out. So we need
7:40
Speaker 1: and we go all into it because it is kind
7:43
Speaker 1: of fascinates I'm one of those that I'm more fascinated
7:45
Speaker 1: by the why and the who more so than the
7:47
Speaker 1: actual subjects. So yes, we went into that, and we
7:51
Speaker 1: also mentioned the overall impact for the audience as as
7:54
Speaker 1: well as why women are so interested in it, including
7:56
Speaker 1: that many listeners they listen so they can prevent it
8:01
Speaker 1: from happening to them or at least not be in
8:03
Speaker 1: that situation, which obviously most of the time there's nothing
8:07
Speaker 1: you can do about it. It It just happens to pack,
8:10
Speaker 1: which is really sucky. But for me, again as to
8:13
Speaker 1: the who are the wild I was like, there has
8:15
Speaker 1: to be more to this, right, there has to be
8:16
Speaker 1: more to while we are so fascinated, and specifically women,
8:20
Speaker 1: while we are so caught up in this. UM. I mean,
8:23
Speaker 1: it's been around since Jack the Ripper, so the old school,
8:27
Speaker 1: old school case, which by the way, was often portrayed
8:30
Speaker 1: to people through comics and drawings since many people could
8:34
Speaker 1: not read at the time, so it was depicted and
8:37
Speaker 1: told through literally, they said, comic strips is how they
8:41
Speaker 1: put it. I wonder if that's why it had such
8:45
Speaker 1: a lasting impact on our culture. Maybe because those pictures
8:50
Speaker 1: are like I know, those pictures when we think about it,
8:53
Speaker 1: we see those black and white like horrible pictures. But yeah,
8:56
Speaker 1: that's how it was often relayed, and the morbid fascination
8:59
Speaker 1: of has only grown as the different mediums have been
9:03
Speaker 1: created to tell these stories. And it's not just stories,
9:07
Speaker 1: And that's kind of what we're going to come back
9:08
Speaker 1: to UM. And any one thing I've been really uh
9:12
Speaker 1: personally struggling with is what about the victims. I've worked
9:16
Speaker 1: with so many victims, I've worked with so many survivors
9:19
Speaker 1: who have gone through horrific abuse and trauma that that's
9:21
Speaker 1: what I know that's what I see. And I have
9:24
Speaker 1: to wonder, I'm like you and I have this conversation,
9:26
Speaker 1: like what about them? I wonder how they see this
9:30
Speaker 1: in this perspective when we talk about it, or when
9:33
Speaker 1: it's grown to be in such a popular conversation, and
9:37
Speaker 1: it is almost I mean, I don't think this is
9:39
Speaker 1: true to all of the people who listen, but almost
9:42
Speaker 1: like it's fetishized in a way. You know. Yeah, I
9:46
Speaker 1: think we've we've talked about that a lot of the
9:50
Speaker 1: I immediately, obviously, I think of Conjuring three, which has
9:55
Speaker 1: that weird moment where it's like based on a true story,
9:58
Speaker 1: but it's based on a true story and away or
10:00
Speaker 1: we're supposed to, I guess, sympathized, empathized with the killer
10:04
Speaker 1: who was possessed. But those are real people, I mean,
10:09
Speaker 1: even if they dramatized it like they are real people,
10:12
Speaker 1: who are you know, perhaps encountering people's theories or thoughts
10:17
Speaker 1: about who did it and why they did it and
10:19
Speaker 1: maybe romanticizing the aspect of it. And I I know
10:24
Speaker 1: I've mentioned it before, but there was an essay I
10:26
Speaker 1: read by somebody whose family had been murdered by a
10:30
Speaker 1: serial killer and she'd seen and heard these kind of
10:33
Speaker 1: documentaries and podcast about it and people kind of excited
10:36
Speaker 1: to talk about it. She she was understanding, she wasn't
10:40
Speaker 1: like that, but she she was saying, like it was
10:44
Speaker 1: so odd to her because it actually happened to her,
10:47
Speaker 1: and how it impacted her kind of processing of things
10:51
Speaker 1: and confused her processing of things. And also it was
10:55
Speaker 1: a really beautiful essay. I wish I could find it again.
10:57
Speaker 1: But ultimately she ended up me being the serial killer
11:00
Speaker 1: and kind of forgiving him, And again that's not I
11:04
Speaker 1: feel like forgiveness gets thrown around is like that is
11:06
Speaker 1: the best thing and it means you're a good person.
11:09
Speaker 1: I don't think it means that at all. But she
11:10
Speaker 1: was able to come to peace, like she right personally,
11:13
Speaker 1: but she talked about that. She talked about the impact
11:15
Speaker 1: of having people talk about it right and confuse her
11:18
Speaker 1: about like motives and deserving and all that kind of stuff. Yeah,
11:23
Speaker 1: and I know we want to talk about it, but
11:24
Speaker 1: I think we do have a podcast on our network
11:28
Speaker 1: where the family member of a serial killer talks about
11:31
Speaker 1: their experience and what they went through and the trauma
11:34
Speaker 1: they went through. And I want to come back and
11:36
Speaker 1: revisit that because oftentimes we hear other perspective from because
11:39
Speaker 1: typically serial killers are men, are by the wife or
11:42
Speaker 1: the daughters to the families, and I think it's an
11:44
Speaker 1: interesting perspective and that we understand not humanizing them necessarily
11:48
Speaker 1: the killers, but the families who also get caught up
11:51
Speaker 1: in the darkness of what is happening and they are
11:54
Speaker 1: also traumatized. But that's a whole different story. But talking
11:57
Speaker 1: about as I'm thinking about what about the victims, what
12:00
Speaker 1: out the victims families? Of course, there was a TikTok
12:03
Speaker 1: video that popped up into my feet. It's like, hey, Samantha,
12:06
Speaker 1: you were talking about this. We know we spy. Here
12:08
Speaker 1: you go. They were talking about their experience in seeing
12:12
Speaker 1: this into a documentary true crime thing. Um. And it
12:16
Speaker 1: was Jordan Preston who is on TikTok and her video,
12:19
Speaker 1: which was kind of a part of a trend that's
12:21
Speaker 1: been happening about you know, you think you can hurt me, Well,
12:23
Speaker 1: this happened to me. There's no way you can hurt me.
12:25
Speaker 1: Kind of trend that's been happening, and it's like taking
12:28
Speaker 1: up kind of just taking up their own trauma and
12:30
Speaker 1: be like Hey, I've been through words, you know type
12:33
Speaker 1: of thing and disclaiming it. I guess um. But in
12:36
Speaker 1: this trend, she addressed how she and her family felt
12:40
Speaker 1: about an episode that was based on her sister's murder.
12:44
Speaker 1: In the actual TikTok Club, it says it shows her
12:48
Speaker 1: and there's a writing it says, you think you can
12:50
Speaker 1: hurt me, But Hullo just released a documentary about how
12:53
Speaker 1: my sister was brutally murdered without our family's consent. And yeah,
12:58
Speaker 1: that's the big question of like, what about the families?
13:00
Speaker 1: Who's consenting to this? Because I've seen so many documentaries
13:03
Speaker 1: where the families were not involved in talking about it.
13:06
Speaker 1: Oftentimes it's just the police and it's often just like
13:09
Speaker 1: found footage type of thing and recordings, and I'm like,
13:12
Speaker 1: what what about them? And yeah, the big question within
13:17
Speaker 1: her talking about it is, you know, I know it's
13:20
Speaker 1: not against the law, but it's it's immoral and why
13:23
Speaker 1: would you do this? Is it ethical for anyone to
13:27
Speaker 1: capitalize on something that they are not giving consent to
13:30
Speaker 1: when it was so personal to them? And how do
13:33
Speaker 1: we as viewers but also conscientious feminist advocates hold ourselves
13:39
Speaker 1: to a better standard when it comes to these types
13:41
Speaker 1: of genres, right, Yeah, Yeah, I mean that's a good
13:47
Speaker 1: it's a good question. And I there's oh gosh, I
13:52
Speaker 1: have so many thoughts about this because there's there's the
13:54
Speaker 1: we talked about kind of the women who fall in
13:57
Speaker 1: love with these serial killers. We talked about that. We've
14:01
Speaker 1: also talked about the women who have been impacted by
14:05
Speaker 1: that and by serial killers. And I think just even
14:10
Speaker 1: the fact that this content is seemingly a majority of
14:15
Speaker 1: women is are consuming it and we yeah, like you said,
14:19
Speaker 1: it's a lot of experts think that's because we're facing
14:25
Speaker 1: these things, are worried about these things all the time,
14:27
Speaker 1: and we're trying to learn what not to do to
14:30
Speaker 1: not be that person, even though it's really out of
14:32
Speaker 1: your control. It's it's kind of a way to give
14:35
Speaker 1: us a sense of control. It is hard because there's
14:39
Speaker 1: just all these pieces that are all messy, and they
14:43
Speaker 1: all have like multiple nuanced reasons why they're happening. Because
14:49
Speaker 1: I get white people like true crime, I get white
14:51
Speaker 1: people whose families are like not even getting consent and
14:55
Speaker 1: having their story told that's totally legit. You would be mad, Like,
14:58
Speaker 1: there's just so many pieces there's so many things that
15:02
Speaker 1: play um and honestly, one of the big things about
15:05
Speaker 1: this is that true crime has become a money maker,
15:08
Speaker 1: which whenever we put money into this, there's so many
15:11
Speaker 1: things that you automatically like, the motive is really wrong
15:14
Speaker 1: in this conversation fame and money, but don't ask us
15:18
Speaker 1: how much because you can't find those numbers. I cannot
15:23
Speaker 1: quite find any of these numbers. There's a little bit
15:25
Speaker 1: of debate. At one point in time, the makers of
15:27
Speaker 1: Making of a Murderer, the big Netflix special that happened, uh,
15:30
Speaker 1: they were getting a pretty good amount of money before
15:33
Speaker 1: Joe Rogan's deal with Spotify. He was one of the
15:36
Speaker 1: highest you know, money makers for for podcasters. They were
15:39
Speaker 1: actually comparing themselves that the money they were making was
15:42
Speaker 1: comparable to his amount of money as well. So that's
15:45
Speaker 1: pretty high up there in itself. And then they went
15:48
Speaker 1: on to try to do a second one and they
15:50
Speaker 1: got a lot of backlash. So I think they stopped
15:53
Speaker 1: because they were like, look, you're really really doing something
15:55
Speaker 1: really ugly, and so they backed off again. Though there's
15:59
Speaker 1: this a little bit different because they were able to
16:01
Speaker 1: prove some concern about the validity of the Confessions, So
16:05
Speaker 1: that's a whole other conversation we're gonna come back to.
16:08
Speaker 1: But shows like that and shows like I Am I
16:12
Speaker 1: Am a Killer, which is like one of the specials,
16:14
Speaker 1: which is like a series, Confessions of a Killer, which
16:17
Speaker 1: is also a little series, Uh, Tiger Key, which is
16:19
Speaker 1: not necessarily series, but they have a two part second partner,
16:23
Speaker 1: have made huge ways in viewerships and made networks like
16:26
Speaker 1: Netflix and Hulu a lot of money. Again, I don't
16:30
Speaker 1: know how much, because they do their subscriptions. Everything is
16:32
Speaker 1: based on views. We know this, but at whose expense?
16:36
Speaker 1: We already know that Carol Baskins, who was one of
16:38
Speaker 1: the features on Tiger Keane, was not happy, was not
16:43
Speaker 1: happy with how she was portrayed, and she talked about
16:45
Speaker 1: she had been misled and she tried to pull out
16:47
Speaker 1: of it because that she realized what was happening. They
16:49
Speaker 1: were making her look really bad. I mean, for sure
16:52
Speaker 1: editing in that. But then also she kind of came
16:54
Speaker 1: into the limeline. She was dancing with the stars. She's
16:57
Speaker 1: been featured in some music videos with some stars. Is
17:00
Speaker 1: like her name is known, so she's made a little
17:02
Speaker 1: bit of an acclaim for herself. I think her business
17:05
Speaker 1: has gone up, even though there's like a lot of
17:07
Speaker 1: questions about the validity of really, are they actually rescuing
17:11
Speaker 1: animals or are they just keeping animals in captivity? What's
17:14
Speaker 1: happening type of conversation. Um, I know that she I
17:18
Speaker 1: think he's a is suing for the second Tiger King one, right, Yeah,
17:25
Speaker 1: I think movies, yeah like that. But we also know
17:28
Speaker 1: that several big questions come to when serial killers can
17:33
Speaker 1: actually sell their own content, and we've talked about that
17:37
Speaker 1: as well previously. As in fact, the dudes from the
17:40
Speaker 1: Making of The Murderer, the oldest man, I can't remember
17:43
Speaker 1: his name. I'm not I'm not even highlighting y'all the
17:46
Speaker 1: killers are perpetrators in this. But he made money by
17:49
Speaker 1: selling off memorabilia in order to get some help in
17:53
Speaker 1: more legal counseling. And if that's if that's what's happening, great,
17:56
Speaker 1: I guess yeah, sure, because we know not all counsehold
18:00
Speaker 1: is created equal. Maybe they didn't get the representations they needed,
18:03
Speaker 1: but stuff like that. When you see that apparently O. J.
18:06
Speaker 1: Simpson's friend made money off of him by doing a
18:10
Speaker 1: one number sharing his stories quote unquote, yeah, we have
18:16
Speaker 1: different things like that. We know, like yeah, things being
18:19
Speaker 1: stolen from crime scenes and resold as that life stories
18:25
Speaker 1: being sold and marketed to like Lifetime and all of
18:27
Speaker 1: like all of these different things that are happening. And
18:29
Speaker 1: it definitely is like a cringe m to me. Um.
18:34
Speaker 1: So the way that it is making money, I don't know.
18:37
Speaker 1: Um Again, Preston talking about her documentary, she had they
18:41
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with it, and they had no say.
18:43
Speaker 1: So this person came in and uh did this documentary
18:47
Speaker 1: and it's kind of made a name for themselves by
18:49
Speaker 1: taking content that wasn't necessarily hers but public information. Yeah,
18:54
Speaker 1: and that's exactly what she talks about, is that the
18:56
Speaker 1: making of the documentary for the Sister the Special, as
18:59
Speaker 1: it described, has been a sort of murder mystery. The
19:02
Speaker 1: way they set it up where they try to make
19:04
Speaker 1: it seem that the accused was innocent due to them
19:07
Speaker 1: having a sleep disorder, so automatically, as a family of
19:10
Speaker 1: a victim, you don't want to hear that. Yeah. Yeah,
19:15
Speaker 1: And I think that's one of the things that I've
19:18
Speaker 1: actually been thinking about it's quite a bit lately for
19:21
Speaker 1: reasons that will come clear in the future podcast. But
19:25
Speaker 1: like I feel like we're so ready to romanticize, forgive,
19:33
Speaker 1: and and feel sorry for the abuse a male serial
19:37
Speaker 1: killer in this case has gone through, which I'm not saying,
19:40
Speaker 1: we shouldn't say like abuses bad or was a part
19:43
Speaker 1: of this, but we're so ready to be like, oh,
19:46
Speaker 1: poor thing, almost like wow, I understand, And the mostly
19:51
Speaker 1: female victims in their orbit are a little more than
19:55
Speaker 1: just like him acting out his trauma and his trauma.
19:59
Speaker 1: Trump's her trauma and all of the other people's trauma
20:02
Speaker 1: around her. Yeah, like she's just kind of a side
20:06
Speaker 1: piece in his tragic, flawed existence. Right. I don't know
20:12
Speaker 1: much about the case. I didn't look into it. I
20:13
Speaker 1: didn't want to watch the documentary after seeing her play
20:16
Speaker 1: to not watch it, So I was like, I will
20:17
Speaker 1: respect that that There is a question absolutely when we
20:22
Speaker 1: talk about past trauma, abuse, all of that, how they
20:26
Speaker 1: can play into a factor. But we also have talked
20:28
Speaker 1: about when we talked about mass shooters, that it's too
20:31
Speaker 1: quick to people be like mental health and that's the
20:33
Speaker 1: very ablest conversation. Just because you have a mental health
20:36
Speaker 1: doesn't mean you're dangerous. And these narratives flipped to that point,
20:39
Speaker 1: and that's that's very ablest and absolutely wrong in every
20:43
Speaker 1: way like that, Okay, yes they may have a mental
20:47
Speaker 1: health issue that we need to talk about, and that
20:50
Speaker 1: was there, but that is not the cause. So let's
20:52
Speaker 1: just go ahead and empty that out. And I think
20:55
Speaker 1: that's kind of that bigger conversation is also, who are
20:58
Speaker 1: we looking to sympathize with? Quickly, they're the white killers,
21:01
Speaker 1: like the white cis mel whatever. That are the ones
21:05
Speaker 1: who are to be sympathized with. And that's again that
21:08
Speaker 1: bigger conversation, like this is all very able list in
21:10
Speaker 1: this way, who's being seen as, oh no, we feel
21:13
Speaker 1: sorry for them? All of that. And she also talks
21:16
Speaker 1: about how had had the show, knowing that they were
21:19
Speaker 1: making the show all about him, automatically was like, no,
21:21
Speaker 1: we don't want to see this. We've already had to
21:23
Speaker 1: go up to tow for this. But had it been
21:25
Speaker 1: a story about how amazing her sister was and highlighting
21:28
Speaker 1: who she was and what she should have been able
21:30
Speaker 1: to do and getting justice for, then they would have participated.
21:33
Speaker 1: As in fact, I believe they have a deal. The
21:35
Speaker 1: family has a deal with another maker who wants to
21:38
Speaker 1: talk about the sister, and that is that is wonderful
21:41
Speaker 1: that I get that that you want to remember your sister.
21:44
Speaker 1: And by the way, which leads to another question, So
21:46
Speaker 1: what about the survivors who are retelling their story? Of course,
21:51
Speaker 1: I guess they have to have consented to a point, right,
21:54
Speaker 1: But what kind of impact does it have for them
21:57
Speaker 1: to sit in an interview chair being drilled about one
22:00
Speaker 1: of the most horrific experiences they've ever had, and then
22:03
Speaker 1: be judged by viewers who are often given an edited
22:06
Speaker 1: version of the story. And typically I will say, I
22:10
Speaker 1: hope the ones that I've seen they give allowance for
22:13
Speaker 1: sympathy to the victims, to the survivors, But at the
22:16
Speaker 1: same time, we still know they're trying to make it
22:18
Speaker 1: a good story. So they want the gory details, They
22:22
Speaker 1: want to go really deep into the things. How did
22:24
Speaker 1: you feel like? They want to traumatize them more on
22:27
Speaker 1: TV to get that good feed, right, They want the
22:31
Speaker 1: tears and the emotions of people will tune in and
22:35
Speaker 1: be like so powerful, right, And then no part of
22:39
Speaker 1: that could be like you don't have to go on,
22:40
Speaker 1: But how else do you get control of that story? Then? Right,
22:44
Speaker 1: It's almost like they've pushed into a corner to do
22:46
Speaker 1: so yeah, yeah, no, I agree, because it's oh gosh,
22:53
Speaker 1: how exhausting it must be to have gone through this
22:55
Speaker 1: traumatic thing. And then people that's what they know you for,
22:57
Speaker 1: and that's what they keep contacting you for using purposely,
23:00
Speaker 1: you're always reminded of it. And then you know if
23:03
Speaker 1: you don't say anything that people are going to take
23:05
Speaker 1: that as message in itself, even if it's just you
23:09
Speaker 1: try and protect your own health, right, oh man. And
23:26
Speaker 1: then and then the common link, as we were researching,
23:29
Speaker 1: is the continued trauma that affects the entire family who
23:32
Speaker 1: has lost the dear loved one which impacts them. I
23:35
Speaker 1: don't know if we've talked about, but that's been talked about,
23:37
Speaker 1: how divorces happened, separationists happened, Um, a lot of you know,
23:42
Speaker 1: trauma related mental health issues happen, like so many things.
23:46
Speaker 1: And not only that, but we often are told all
23:50
Speaker 1: of the secrets of not only the family, but the
23:53
Speaker 1: lives of the victims and all around them. I mean,
23:56
Speaker 1: I want to be horrified if someone knew every detail
24:01
Speaker 1: of my life in every way and then just shredded
24:05
Speaker 1: it and pushed it all out. I mean, obviously the
24:08
Speaker 1: victim blaming in itself is what it goes to. But
24:10
Speaker 1: then if you are a victim or the family of
24:13
Speaker 1: the victim not want to share all of these things
24:15
Speaker 1: and it's just out there for everyone to see. Again,
24:20
Speaker 1: the families do not have control over the narrative that
24:24
Speaker 1: is being shared, which adds even more trauma. Yeah, for sure,
24:29
Speaker 1: Like I'm thinking of, like I don't watch shoot come off,
24:32
Speaker 1: and but I'm thinking you past things I've watched where
24:34
Speaker 1: it's like she went out and she was known to
24:37
Speaker 1: drink and sometimes flirt, And they definitely will paint it
24:40
Speaker 1: in a way where you're like, well, this is very
24:42
Speaker 1: victim blaming, but they do it in such a way
24:45
Speaker 1: where I think they're trying to build the mystery of
24:48
Speaker 1: what happened. But all it really does is I feel
24:51
Speaker 1: very victim blaming me. It is. And that's the other part,
24:54
Speaker 1: Like the conversations, And I know when it comes to
24:58
Speaker 1: investigations and things like that, you have to go clinical,
25:01
Speaker 1: you have to go almost like factual in every way,
25:04
Speaker 1: and so things like terms like high risk low risk victims,
25:08
Speaker 1: so literally like oh, you put yourself in this high
25:10
Speaker 1: risk situation, so yeah, you're more likely to get murdered
25:13
Speaker 1: And that's frank and to the point, I guess, but
25:17
Speaker 1: is it better? Is it a great narrative? Is that
25:19
Speaker 1: what you would want to hear about your family member? Hell? No, no, yes,
25:25
Speaker 1: I'm a single woman living alone, so I'm deaf therefore
25:28
Speaker 1: high risk? What right? Right? Right? And did not have
25:32
Speaker 1: any control over that? And just you know, when you
25:35
Speaker 1: lose someone, you think of all the like, but they
25:38
Speaker 1: don't know this about this person or they don't know right.
25:41
Speaker 1: It's like it's such a like dramatized for the building
25:45
Speaker 1: of this mystery that there's like there's just so much
25:49
Speaker 1: left out of who that person was. And ah, that
25:53
Speaker 1: would be highly upsetting for sure, right, you know, But
25:57
Speaker 1: not all feel that way, Not all family members feel
25:59
Speaker 1: this way, not all survivors feel this way. Some feel
26:02
Speaker 1: that's the very least, at least people are still talking
26:05
Speaker 1: about the cases that's not been solved. That was one
26:08
Speaker 1: of the things about the Gabby Potitos case is that
26:11
Speaker 1: if had they not talked about it as much, maybe
26:15
Speaker 1: they would never have solved it. They were never found
26:17
Speaker 1: her um, which again led to the fight and why
26:19
Speaker 1: aren't we talking about everybody else who's missing that's unsolved,
26:23
Speaker 1: that is a cult case, and that that's exactly the point,
26:26
Speaker 1: not only that they're talking about it, but they're bringing
26:29
Speaker 1: it back to light. Uh. As in fact, in cases
26:32
Speaker 1: of shows like Unsolved Mysteries or The Most Wanted, which
26:36
Speaker 1: did you watch any of those those horrified note? I
26:39
Speaker 1: watched it. I was scared. Of course, the Unsolved Mysteries
26:41
Speaker 1: also had alien abductions and yeah, yeah, too much so.
26:47
Speaker 1: But the Families feels that at the very at least,
26:50
Speaker 1: there are some who are still trying to find justice,
26:52
Speaker 1: trying to get answers um. And according to the creator
26:55
Speaker 1: of the reboot of Unsolved Mysteries, which is back on Netflix, uh,
26:59
Speaker 1: the original, which ran for twenty nine years like a
27:03
Speaker 1: long time, helps solve over two hundred and sixty cold
27:06
Speaker 1: cases during their time, while shows like um Jinks, which
27:11
Speaker 1: is about Durst Robert Durst, I believe and most wanted
27:14
Speaker 1: to help get arrest of very infamous criminals that people
27:18
Speaker 1: didn't even know we're out there, but highlighted it and
27:20
Speaker 1: they were able to get some type of conviction, some
27:23
Speaker 1: type of arrest. Um they had gotten some proof about it.
27:27
Speaker 1: There are other shows they're talking about that they help
27:30
Speaker 1: solve like another hundred unsolved cases, and and and so
27:34
Speaker 1: things like that do come to light, and people are
27:37
Speaker 1: very grateful to have stories like that, but still does
27:41
Speaker 1: kind of linger into viewership and monetization and what does
27:45
Speaker 1: that look like? And I know there's a a couple
27:48
Speaker 1: of questions like who is it going after? And what
27:52
Speaker 1: how does the narrative happen? Is it biased to make
27:55
Speaker 1: you believe someone's guilty or believe someone's not guilty? Who knows?
27:59
Speaker 1: And of course, as viewers like myself, we have to
28:01
Speaker 1: be careful. I know, I know that we're talking about it,
28:04
Speaker 1: and obviously I am very, very very guilty of leaning
28:08
Speaker 1: into these a little too hard. I told you I
28:10
Speaker 1: really like Snapped, but it does I'm sure there's a
28:13
Speaker 1: sexist in here that I'm not paying attention to because
28:16
Speaker 1: I've just caught up. And at the same time, I'm
28:18
Speaker 1: sometimes like, yeah, I'm gonna snap too, let's go um,
28:21
Speaker 1: you know, bringing light to the fact that why are
28:23
Speaker 1: we so obsessed with these conversations in these stories? Is
28:27
Speaker 1: it because we want to again protect ourselves? Is it
28:30
Speaker 1: because we want to make ourselves feel better? At least
28:32
Speaker 1: we're not in that situation, which is really kind of
28:34
Speaker 1: gross in itself, and I get that too, but that
28:37
Speaker 1: we have to remember that it isn't just an entertainment source,
28:41
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, I think that's really really important, and
28:44
Speaker 1: that's been a conversation in the podcasting world that we've
28:48
Speaker 1: experienced because it's I guess respectfulness is the key. I
28:52
Speaker 1: would say, like, definitely, it's not that we shouldn't tell
28:56
Speaker 1: these stories, but we should do them respectfully and hopefully
29:00
Speaker 1: with consent of I mean, in my world, with the
29:03
Speaker 1: consent of people who were directly involved and with their
29:09
Speaker 1: I don't have cooperation is the right word, but like
29:11
Speaker 1: they're the people to ask to just do it in
29:15
Speaker 1: a way that is the least harmful and the most helpful. Right, Yeah,
29:21
Speaker 1: we have to be responsible on how something is consumed
29:24
Speaker 1: and who are the ones that are making the money
29:26
Speaker 1: and benefits benefiting from it. Mm hm oh gosh. There's
29:34
Speaker 1: so much, so much stuff to unpack in this and
29:36
Speaker 1: so many things that I'm like, we should talk about
29:38
Speaker 1: this later. I love how these are Monday minis are
29:41
Speaker 1: good and off the chain. We can't help it. We
29:46
Speaker 1: got so many thoughts and if you have thoughts, listeners
29:49
Speaker 1: we would love to hear them. You can email us
29:51
Speaker 1: at Steffie your Mom stuff at I heart media dot com.
29:54
Speaker 1: You confine us on Twitter at months of podcasts or
29:56
Speaker 1: Instagram of stuff I've never told you. Thanks, it's always
29:58
Speaker 1: You're a super producer, Chris Gina, Thank you, yes, and
30:03
Speaker 1: thanks to you for listening. Stephone never told his production
30:05
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio for more podcast on my Heart
30:07
Speaker 1: Radio VI isnit that I hear radio? App, Apple podcast
30:09
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite ships.