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How Influencers Are Changing the Way Cases Are Covered · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So it is February 10th, 2026. We are in Tucson, Arizona,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: and a woman named Nancy Guthrie has been missing for
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: 10 days at this point.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Right, which is, I mean, 10 days is an incredibly
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: tense window for a missing persons case.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Exactly. So the local police, they have her house completely
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: locked down. I mean, it is an active, highly sensitive
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: crime scene.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Yellow tape everywhere, I imagine. Oh, yeah.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Yellow tape, detectives taking notes, police vehicles parked all over
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the street.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: And then.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Walking right past all of those police vehicles, just strolling
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: casually past the detectives, is a guy delivering a hot
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Domino's pizza.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: I mean, the visual is so surreal. It almost sounds
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: like a darkly comedic sketch, you know?
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: It really does. Just walking straight up to the front
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: door of this potential tragedy with a pizza box.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: You have the solemn, really meticulous reality of a missing
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: persons investigation just colliding head on with the gig economy.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: And the reason he's there is even more bizarre because
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: he isn't delivering food to the detectives.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: Let me guess. It wasn't for the family either. No.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: He's there because someone on the Internet, sitting miles away
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: behind a glowing computer screen, decided to order a pizza
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: for an unidentified blogger. Wow. A blogger who was literally
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: camping on the victim's lawn, live streaming the whole thing
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: to their followers.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: That is just, that moment essentially broke the fourth wall
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: of reality.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: It really did.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: Because for decades, right, we've operated on this collective social contract.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: You know, yellow police tape means stay back. Right.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: You don't cross the line.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It's a physical and psychological boundary. It separates the
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: authorities who are actively managing the crisis from the public
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: who are simply observing.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: But that boundary doesn't seem to exist anymore, does it?
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Not at all. The digital world has completely, entirely bled
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: into the physical one.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Which is exactly why we are taking this deep dive today.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: We are looking at the incredibly blurry, rapidly shifting, and
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: let's be honest, often toxic line between true crime advocacy
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: and true crime exploitation.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: It is such a vital conversation to have right now.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: It really is. And our guide for this deep dive
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: is this phenomenal piece of journalism. It's an October 2026
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: article published by A & E, written by Lauren Peister.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. titled When True Crime Influencers Cross the Line
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: Between Advocacy and Exploitation. Fantastic piece.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: It's so thorough. And before we even get into the
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: mechanics of how this happens, I really want to talk
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: directly to you, the listener.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because we're all part of this.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Exactly. If you queue up this deep dive, if you
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: listen to podcasts about unsolved mysteries, or, you know, if
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: you ever find yourself scrolling through TikToks analyzing cold cases,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: you are part of this ecosystem.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: We all are.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Right. We are the audience generating the demand. The choices
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: we make when we click play directly fuel the exact
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: phenomena we're about to explore.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: The demand side of the equation is it's crucial here
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: because the people on that lawn in Tucson, they weren't
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: there by accident. No, not at all. They were there
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: because a massive, voracious audience was heavily incentivizing them to
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: be there.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: OK, let's unpack this because let's stay on that lawn
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: for a second. The fallout from that pizza delivery attempt
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: was just unprecedented.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: It really pushed the local authorities over the edge.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Oh, completely. The Pima County Sheriff's Department actually reached a
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: breaking point. They had to go on to X, you know,
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: formerly Twitter, and issue an official public statement begging people
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: to stop.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: Do you have the quote? I do.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: The quote they released literally started with the phrase, we
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: can't believe we have to say this.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they actually had to ask the quote-unquote media on
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: scene to please stop ordering food delivery to an active
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: crime scene address and to respect private property laws.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: We can't believe we have to say this. I mean,
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: that exasperation perfectly captures the modern law enforcement dilemma right now.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: It really highlights how bizarre things have gotten.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: Right, because historically police departments only had to manage traditional media.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: You know, you have seasoned reporters from local affiliates or
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: national networks like CNN.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Sure, professionals who know the drill.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The police set up a press briefing area, they
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: establish a perimeter, and there's a professional mutual understanding of
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: the rules of engagement. Right. But now? Now detectives are
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: being forced to perform crowd control on gig workers and
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: internet personalities. People who operate with zero editorial oversight and
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: absolutely no understanding of forensic integrity.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: I try to imagine being a forensic investigator in that moment,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: you know? Like, your job is to analyze minute fibers,
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: look for trace DNA, track digital footprints.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: Highly sensitive work. Very.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: And instead of doing that, you are intercepting a pepperoni pizza.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: It's absurd. It is.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: And the ripple effects of this incident caused this massive
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: clash of perspectives, which is where things get really, really complicated.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: Because different groups saw that pizza delivery in completely different ways. Exactly. Exactly.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: Traditional media looked at the circus and saw absolute unmitigated interference.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: You had CNN's Brian Stelter pointing to this exact moment
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: as the ultimate proof that inexperienced Internet sleuths are actively
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: degrading the investigative process.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: And, I mean, from a purely procedural standpoint, traditional media
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: is absolutely correct here.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you can't really argue with the forensics of it.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: No, because a crowd of untrained individuals trampling over a
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: potential crime scene is a literal forensic nightmare. You're introducing
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: foreign DNA. You're destroying shoe impressions.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: You're diverting crucial law enforcement resources away from actually finding
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: Nancy Guthrie.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But what's fascinating here is how the internet sleuths
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: interpreted that exact same event. They looked at the pizza
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: delivery driver walking up to the door and drew the
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: exact opposite conclusion.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Right. They didn't see it as their own fault for
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: creating a circus. They saw it as proof of police incompetence.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Their logic was essentially, well, if a random dominoes driver
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: can just wander past your perimeter and compromise the scene,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: then you guys clearly aren't doing the basics of your job.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: It creates a deeply dangerous feedback loop. Think about it.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: How so?
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: Well, the influencers create a chaotic environment that makes the
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: scene difficult to manage, right? Which then leads to a
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: breach in security.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: Right, the pizza guy getting through.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And then they use that very breach as justification
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: for their own presence. They argue that Since the police
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: are clearly incompetent, the citizens have a moral obligation to
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: step in and hold them accountable. Wow.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: So they create the problem and then claim they need
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: to be there to fix it.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: Precisely. It becomes this self-fulfilling prophecy of interference masked as
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: public service.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: So let's look at who is actually making up this
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: new breed of quote-unquote media on scene. Because we aren't
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: talking about locals casually passing through the neighborhood.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: No, the dedication is intense.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: The A & E source material profiles a couple of
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: these specific creators, and the lengths they go to are
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: just staggering. You have a live streamer named John DiPetro.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: He didn't just hear about the Guthrie case and post
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: a video from his living room. He lives in Rhode Island.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: He literally bought a plane ticket and flew across the
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: entire country to Tucson, Arizona, just to be physically standing
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: on that street.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: And when he was confronted about why he was there,
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: his justification was incredibly revealing about the psychology of modern
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: media consumption.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: What did he say?
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: He claimed to have his own trusted sources, you know,
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: positioning himself as a parallel investigator. But the defining statement
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: he made to CNN was about his audience. Right. He
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: explicitly stated that his content isn't for people who just
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: want a summary of the evening news. He said his
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: content is, quote, for the people that can't get enough.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: The people that can't get enough. That phrasing actually makes
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: my stomach turn a bit, honestly.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: It's very grim.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: It is. Because we aren't talking about a fictional Netflix
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: series here, you know, where you're binge-watching to find out
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: who takes over the family company.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: No, this is real life.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: We are talking about a real human being who has vanished.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: A woman whose family is likely trapped in the most
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: agonizing psychological torture imaginable. And yet the public's demand is
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: framed as this insatiable appetite, like an all-you-can-eat buffet of
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: someone else's trauma.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: It really speaks to the gamification of the genre.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Gamification, exactly.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: When you frame a real-world tragedy as content for people
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: who can't get enough, you strip the victim of their humanity.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: You reduce them to a plot device in an ongoing
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: interactive reality show.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: And the interactive element is what I'm really stuck on here.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: Because another creator profiled in the article, Andy Signore, who
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: runs a massive YouTube channel called Popcorn Planet, he also
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: flew across the country from Tampa, Florida.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: Right. He was the one who camped out. Yes.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: He literally camped out in front of Nancy Guthrie's house.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: And his defense for being there was that he wanted
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: to ensure there were enough people, quote unquote, spotlighting the
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: case because he felt the authorities weren't sufficiently on top
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: of it.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: And this is the core defense of the modern true
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: crime influencer, right? Visibility equals justice.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: That's always the line.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: The argument is that without their cameras, without their physical
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: presence creating all this noise, the police will simply sweep
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: the case under the rug.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, I struggle with that defense immensely because... Let's
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: think about this through a different lens for a second.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: Imagine you are sitting in a theater watching a deeply tragic,
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: heartbreaking play. The actors are pouring their souls out on stage.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: But suddenly, an audience member decides the pacing is too
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: slow or the lighting isn't quite right. So they literally
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: climb out of their seat, walk right up onto the stage,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: and start moving the props around. Oh, wow.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: They start shining their iPhone flashlight into the actors' faces,
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: claiming they are spotlighting the performance.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: That analogy perfectly isolates the mechanical failure here, because the
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: audience member on stage isn't actually helping the narrative, are they?
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: Not at all.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: All.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: They're ruining it.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: They are actively disrupting the mechanics of the play. They
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: have completely shattered the proscenium arch. The illusion, or in
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: the case of a crime scene, the integrity of the investigation,
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: is entirely compromised because the observer has forcefully made themselves
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: a participant. Exactly.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: So my question regarding Senor's justification is, does pitching a
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: tent on a missing woman's lawn actually advance the forensic investigation?
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: Or is that simply content creation disguised as advocacy?
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: It's a very thin line.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: Right, because spotlighting a case through journalistic pressure is one thing.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: You know, writing articles, asking tough questions at press conferences.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: But physically inserting yourself into the geographical center of the trauma?
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: It changes the dynamic entirely.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: It really feels like a strategic move to ensure that
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: you become a central character in the story. You aren't
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: just reporting the news anymore. You are generating it by
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: your sheer presence.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: And we have to ask ourselves how society arrived at
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: a point where this behavior is not only normalized but
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: heavily incentivized.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: That's the million-dollar question.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: How do we go from the relatively passive consumption of,
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: you know, watching an hour of Dateline on a Friday
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: night to an ecosystem where millions of people are watching
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: a live feed of a missing woman's driveway? and ordering
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: pizza for the person filming it. Right.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: What is the mechanism that caused that massive shift? Because
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: it's not like society hasn't always been fascinated by the macabre.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: No, true crime isn't new.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: We had penny dreadfuls in the Victorian era. We had
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: massive newspaper circulations built entirely around the Jack the Ripper murders.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: The psychological curiosity about the dark side of human nature,
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: that's always been there.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: The psychology hasn't changed at all, but the infrastructure of
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: delivery has been completely revolutionized.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Oh, the technology.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: Exactly. What the A & E piece really highlights is
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: the explosion of pure accessibility. True crime used to be contained.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: It was a book you bought at the store or
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: a specific broadcast you tuned into at a specific time.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: You had to seek it out. Right.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: Now it is ambient. It is ubiquitous across every single
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: streaming platform and podcast network. It is pushed into your
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: feed by algorithms that are specifically engineered to identify exactly
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: what holds human attention.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: And nothing holds human attention quite like danger and mystery.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Danger, mystery, unresolved tension. The algorithm knows we can't
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: look away.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: And because that market became so utterly saturated, because literally
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: everyone with a microphone and a laptop could start reading
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Wikipedia articles about serial killers, the genre had to evolve.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: It had to fragment to survive.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: Right. You couldn't just tell the basic story anymore. You
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: needed a hook. You needed a highly specific niche. And
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: that evolutionary pressure birthed one of the most commercially successful
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: and ethically radioactive subgenres in the entire space. The comedy
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: true crime podcast.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: The collision of comedy and real world murder. It is
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: a profoundly jarring juxtaposition.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: It really is.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: But you can't deny how effective it's been.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: No, you can't. And we have to talk about the
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: absolute juggernaut of this space, which Lauren Peister highlights extensively
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: in the article, My Favorite Murder.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: Hosted by comedians Karen Kilgareff and Georgia Hardstark. I mean,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: the metrics for the show are almost difficult to comprehend.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: The numbers are staggering.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: At its peak, we are talking about up to 35
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: million downloads a month. 35 million downloads. That isn't a podcast.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: That is a minor religion at that point. They built
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: an absolute empire out of discussing gruesome, horrific violence through
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: the lens of comedic banter.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: A monthly reach of 35 million listeners gives you cultural
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: influence that rivals major news networks. I mean, it's massive.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: But building that kind of infrastructure on a foundation of
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: comedic banter about murder inherently invites intense scrutiny.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: It has to.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: And the criticisms levied against My Favorite Murder actually provide
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: a Really clear map of the ethical pitfalls of the
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: entire genre.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: So let's unpack those criticisms because they highlight some massive
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: systemic issues. First, there's the demographic focus. They have faced
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: really heavy backlash over the years for disproportionately featuring stories
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: about white victims.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: Yes. We need to explain the mechanics of what sociologists
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: call missing white woman syndrome because it's highly relevant here.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: Please do.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: It is a well-documented media phenomenon where the disappearance or
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: murder of a young, attractive, often middle-class white woman, generates
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: vastly more news coverage and public interest than the disappearance
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: of a person of color or someone from a marginalized background.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: And why does that happen fundamentally? Like, is it just
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: algorithmic bias or is it something deeper in our culture?
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: It is a toxic combination of societal bias and media economics.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: Traditional newsrooms, which historically were predominantly white, tended to select
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: stories that they felt their core demographics would identify with.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: Right. The whole, it could happen to your neighbor angle.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The narrative of the innocent victim taken from a
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: safe neighborhood taps into a very specific, deeply ingrained societal fear.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: So how does that translate to podcasts?
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: Well, when true crime podcasts rely on legacy news coverage
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: as their primary source material for research, They inadvertently inherit
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: and amplify those exact same racial and socioeconomic biases.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: Oh, that makes total sense. They're just repeating what was
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: already reported.
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: Right. And then the podcast algorithm sees those specific episodes
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: performing well and incentivizes the creators to produce more of
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: the same. It creates this closed loop of disproportionate representation.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: So they are basically laundering decades-old media bias through a
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: modern podcast platform. That is heavy.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: It is.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: And that leads directly into the second major criticism the
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: article points out, a severe lack of rigorous fact-checking.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: Which is a huge issue when you aren't a journalist. Exactly.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Because they are comedians, not investigative reporters, they have been
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: criticized heavily for relying on superficial internet research, like taking
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: first-page Google results or Wikipedia summaries as gospel.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: Which is incredibly dangerous. When you are operating a platform
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: with 35 million listeners... A factual inaccuracy isn't just a
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: minor oops moment.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: No, it's a broadcasted error to a small country.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: If you misidentify a suspect or misrepresent the timeline of
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: a crime or state something inaccurate about a surviving family member,
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: you are weaponizing an army of listeners based on false information.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: You can permanently destroy the reputation of a real person
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: who simply had the misfortune of being adjacent to a tragedy.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: But the most philosophical criticism, the one that really strikes
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: at the core of our deep dive today, is the
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: inherent friction of the format itself.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: The comedy aspect. Yeah. How do you.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: Ethically find a joke inside a story about someone being
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: brutally dismembered?
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: It's a tough pill to swallow.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, even if the comedians are carefully aiming their
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: jokes at the incompetence of the police or mocking the
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: sheer pathetic nature of the murderer, which they often do,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: the ultimate punchline is always dancing on the grave of
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: a real victim.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: And that tension is deeply embedded in the culture of
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: their fandom. Because this isn't just a passive audience. It
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: is a highly mobilized community. They even have a name
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: for themselves. They call themselves Murderinos.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: Murderinos. Even the name itself softens the reality, doesn't it?
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: It absolutely does.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: It takes the most violent, transgressive act a human can commit, murder,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: and turns it into a cute, clubby suffix. And the
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: entire culture of this fandom orbits around their famous sign-off catchphrase,
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: Stay sexy and don't get murdered.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: Let's really analyze the psychological mechanics of that catchphrase because
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: it explains the entire appeal of the show.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's hear it.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: The podcast explicitly frames the consumption of these horrific stories
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: as a therapeutic coping mechanism. For women who live daily
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: with a very real statistical threat of violence and assault,
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: navigating the world requires a constant state of low-level hypervigilance. Right.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: Always checking the backseat, holding your keys between your fingers.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And the show provides a space where they can
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: look directly at the thing that terrifies them the most
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: and strip it of its power by laughing at it.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: It's basically an exposure therapy argument.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: If we talk about the monsters in the dark and
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: we mock them, they aren't as scary.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: But here is the massive ethical dilemma I really want
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: to throw your way.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: I'm ready.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: If a piece of media successfully helps tens of millions
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: of women process their very real, very valid anxieties about
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: existing in a violent society, does that psychological utility for
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: the audience justify using a real specific victim's horrific death
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: as the raw material for that therapy?
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: That is the big question.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Right. Like, does the benefit to the living outweigh the
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: potential disrespect to the deceased?
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: It is the ultimate utilitarian paradox of true crime. On
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: a macro level, providing a sense of community and safety
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: for millions of people is a tangible social good.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: For sure.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: But on a micro level, the mechanism of that therapy
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: requires turning a real human being's final most terrifying moments
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: into a consumable product. And what's fascinating here is the
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: psychological danger of using tragedy as a coping mechanism. It
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: inherently desensitizes the consumer.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: How so?
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: Well, When you listen to your hundredth murder story while
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: folding laundry or commuting to work, the victim inevitably ceases
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: to be a real person in your mind. They become
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: a character in a serialized audio drama.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: They become a plot point.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: And when you start viewing real people as characters in
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: a story, you naturally start believing that you can interact
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: with the narrative. You start thinking you can influence the plot.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: Which is incredibly dangerous.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Which is the exact bridge that takes us from a
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: fan passively listening to a podcast in their car to
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: an internet sleuth ordering a pizza to an active crime scene.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: When crime becomes interactive content, the potential for real-world harm skyrockets.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: The gamification of justice. It is by far the most
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: alarming evolution highlighted in the source material. And to perfectly
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: illustrate the absolute apex of this gamification, the article details
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: a major controversy from late 2025.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: Oh, this is a perfect case study.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: It involves a very popular YouTuber named Eleanor Neal.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Right. So Eleanor Neal hosts a podcast called Outlaw. She
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: has a massive, highly dedicated audience, nearly 3 million followers
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: on YouTube alone. And she decided to take the digital
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: experience and manifest it in the physical world.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: She went on tour.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: She did. She announced a live tour across the UK.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: Taking a true crime show on a live theatrical tour
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: fundamentally shifts the dynamic of the genre.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: How do you mean?
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: You're moving from the solitary, intimate experience of someone listening
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: in their headphones to a collective, performative event. You have
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: hundreds or thousands of people in a room reacting in
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: real time, feeding off the energy of the crowd. It
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: inherently demands a higher level of theatricality and entertainment.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: And the way she promoted this necessary theatricality is what
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: caused the internet to absolutely detonate.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: What did she say?
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: She put out a promotional quote teasing the tour, and
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: I need to read this exactly as it was written
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: in the article. She said, quote, We're going to analyze
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: criminal cases, look through evidence, and debate suspects. It's what
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: we do best around here.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: Debate suspects. Let us really slow down and dissect the
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: machinery of that phrase.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Please.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: What does it actually mean to debate suspects in front
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: of a live, cheering audience?
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: It means you are treating an unsolved murder exactly like
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: a giant interactive game of Clue.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Exactly.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: You are standing on a stage in London, looking out
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: at a crowd who bought tickets and bought drinks at
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: the bar, and you are essentially saying, all right, everyone,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: was it the husband in the kitchen with the knife
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: or the neighbor in the garage with the rope? Let's
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: hear it for the husband.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: Precisely. And by doing so, you are entirely ignoring the
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: humanity of the people you are casually debating. The suspects
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: being debated are real human beings.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: With real lives.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: Yes. They have jobs. They have families. They have lives
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: that can be instantly destroyed by the digital mob. And
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: the victim is reduced to the game board upon which
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: this theatrical debate is being played out. The pursuit of
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: justice is completely overwritten by the demand for audience participation theater.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: It taps into the same dopamine loops as a slot
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: machine or a video game. You get the thrill of
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: the puzzle, the rush of feeling like a detective, the
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: community validation of the crowd, all completely insulated from the
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: actual horror of the reality.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: It's a very potent mix for an audience.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: But thankfully, the ecosystem does have somewhat of an immune system.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: The article details how intense the backlash to that specific
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: promotion was.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: The internet did not let that slide.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: Not at all. Commenters and fellow YouTubers absolutely tore into her,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: accusing her of blatantly profiting off of human suffering and
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: showing a grotesque lack of respect for the families involved.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: And the swiftness of that backlash suggests that the audience's
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: palate is somewhat maturing. There is a growing cognitive dissonance
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: within the true crime community.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: And they're starting to feel guilty.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: Right. They enjoy the content, but they are becoming increasingly
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: uncomfortable with the overt, cynical monetization of the tragedies they
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: are consuming. Yeah. But to truly grasp why treating these
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: cases like interactive games is so destructive, we cannot just
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: listen to other YouTubers complaining. We have to center the
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: perspective of the people who actually live inside the blast
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: radius of this content.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: And Lauren Peister's article provides that exact perspective by introducing
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: us to Kate Crane.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: Yes, Kate Crane's perspective is vital here.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: Kate isn't a podcaster or a journalist. She is the
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: author of a memoir called Whatever Happened to Eddie Crane?
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: And she is the daughter of a missing father.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: A completely different vantage point.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Entirely. She is someone who actually lives the reality that
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: millions of people consume as entertainment. And her insight into
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: how the true crime phenomenon affects her is just gut-wrenching.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: She spoke with A & E Crime Plus Investigation earlier
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: in the year, and she was incredibly direct.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: What was her main takeaway?
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: She stated that as the daughter of a missing person,
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: the sheer existence of the true crime genre makes her
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: profoundly uncomfortable. And she diagnosed the exact psychological mechanism we've
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: been discussing. She said the genre inherently desensitizes people.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: Let's really dive deep into her full quote because it's
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: the anchor of this entire conversation. She said, and I quote,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: I really feel that there's a segment of the true
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: crime fan base that does not understand there are differences
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: between fact and fiction, particularly around ethics.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: Which ties right back to the gamification we talked about.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And then she adds, in real life, there's an
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: ethical minefield of people whose lives have been forever affected
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: by the fact of the crime.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: I really want to focus on her use of the
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: term ethical minefield. It is a brilliant, terrifyingly accurate metaphor
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: for how trauma exists in the real world versus the
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: digital world. Think about how a minefield actually functions.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: Right. A minefield is entirely invisible to someone who doesn't
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: know the terrain.
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: Exactly that. To the true crime fan sitting in the
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: audience of a live tour or the sleuth ordering a
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: pizza in Tucson, the field looks completely clear. They are
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: just interacting with a story. They see a puzzle to
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: be solved.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: Just moving the pieces around.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: Right. But to the victim's family or to a falsely
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: accused suspect, the terrain is rigged with explosives. Every time
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: an influencer mispronounces a victim's name, every time a podcaster
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: casually throws out an unfounded theory about a family member's involvement.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: Or posts a sensationalized YouTube thumbnail.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Every single time. It is a landmine detonating. It
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: blows their grief wide open all over again.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: And that concept of the blast radius is so important
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: to keep in mind. Because when Eleanor Neal finishes her
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: show in London or when John DiPetro gets tired of
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: filming on a lawn in Tucson, they pack up their equipment.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: They go home.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: They go back to their hotels. They upload the video,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: collect the ad revenue, and move on to the next
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: piece of content. But the family of the victim doesn't
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: get to turn off the camera.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: No. They are stuck in it.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: They have to live in the permanent digital blast radius
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: of that content forever. The internet never forgets. The video
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: that accused the brother of doing it, even if the
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: brother is officially cleared 10 years later.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: And this brings us to the core tension of the
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: influencer model, really. The monetization of empathy.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Well, I want to challenge you on that idea for
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: a second, thinking about Eleanor Neal and the live tour.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: OK, challenge away.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: What is the actual root of the poison here? Like,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: is it purely the economic structure, the fact that she
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: has to sell tickets and merch, which inherently requires turning
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: trauma into a spectacle? Or is it a deeper psychological arrogance?
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: How do you mean?
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: Like the sheer hubris of an influencer believing that having
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: a ring light and a fast internet connection somehow grants
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: them the moral and investigative authority to quote-unquote debate suspects
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: on a public stage?
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: Honestly, the mechanics of the influencer economy make those two
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: things inseparable. The economic model demands the arrogance.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: So they feed each other.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: Yes. If you were selling $ 30 tickets to a theater
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: in London, You cannot just sit on stage and quietly
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: read a police report for an hour. Silence and careful
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: consideration do not generate ticket sales or algorithmic engagement.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: No, people want to show.
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: The structure of the platform demands theatricality, outrage, and confident assertions. Therefore,
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: the creator is economically incentivized to adopt a persona of
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: supreme confidence, arrogance as you called it, to present themselves
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: as the ultimate arbiter of a mystery. Ah, I see.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: The monetization doesn't just encourage exploitation. It practically mandates it.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: Man. If we stop the deep dive right here, the
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: conclusion is incredibly bleak.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: Very bleak.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: It paints a picture of a media landscape completely devoid
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: of humanity, driven entirely by sociopathic algorithms and greedy creators.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: We'd probably both be ready to throw our laptops out
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: the window right now.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't blame you.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: But the beauty of the source material, Lauren Peister's article,
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: is that it doesn't just stop at the exploitation. It pivots.
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: Thank goodness.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: Right. It acknowledges that the justice system is heavily flawed
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: and explores what happens when independent creators use these exact
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: same digital tools to step into the massive, heartbreaking voids
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: left by traditional law enforcement. Yes.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: For every creator camping on a lawn for views, there
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: is a counter-narrative. The article introduces us to the potential
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: for genuine, highly ethical advocacy through a creator named Gabby Valenti.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: Who operates online under the name Gabalosis.
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: The contrast between Gabby Valente and the megastars we've discussed
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: is immediate and very intentional in the article. Valente has
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: just under 200,000 followers on YouTube.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: Which is still a lot of people.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: Oh, in the real world, a room of 200,000 people
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: is a stadium. But in the digital economy, compared to
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: the millions of subscribers of an outlaw or the 35
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: million downloads of My Favorite Murder, it is a very specific,
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: much smaller population.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: Pond. And the crucial detail is that Valente actively prefers
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: it that way.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: She really does. She states that she values a smaller,
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: dedicated community because they aren't there for the popcorn theater.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: They are people who genuinely care about the cases and
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: want to actually help.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: And the evolution of her content is just a masterclass
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: in how an ethical creator develops. The article details that
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: when she launched her channel back in 2016, she wasn't
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: chasing the active, highly volatile missing persons cases like the
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: one in Tucson.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: No, what was she doing?
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: She started by focusing on old Hollywood mysteries.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: Which makes perfect sense ethically. If you are analyzing a
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: mysterious death from the 1930s, the ethical minefield is mostly deactivated, right?
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: Precisely.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: The direct family members are long gone. The original investigators
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: have passed away. You are essentially doing historical analysis at
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: that point. It's a much safer playground.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: But her trajectory changed. And it wasn't because she was
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: chasing algorithmic trends. The shift occurred organically because she started
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: receiving direct requests. From who? Well, people began asking her
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: to cover lesser-known, older cases. And eventually, she crossed a
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: major threshold. She was contacted directly by the surviving family
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: members of victims.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: And the reason those families were reaching out to a
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: YouTuber is, I mean, it's the most devastating indictment of
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: our justice system imaginable.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: It really is.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: The article notes that these families were begging for attention
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: to be brought to their loved ones because they felt
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: entirely let down and abandoned by traditional law enforcement.
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: Yes. The quote from the piece, countless families out there
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: wanting their words to be heard, and they've been let
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: down many times by law enforcement. That, quote, completely recontextualizes
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: the entire debate about the, quote unquote, Internet sleuth.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: It totally flips the script.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: It does.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: If the police are doing their job, the influencer is
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: a nuisance, right? But if the detective has stopped returning
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: a mother's phone calls and the case file has been
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: sitting in a dusty cabinet for 10 years and the
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: family is desperate for anyone with a megaphone to say
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: their daughter's name.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: Then the independent creator isn't an intruder at all. No. No.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: They are the absolute last lifeline that family has.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: This is the exact space where the term armchair detective
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: transitions from a derogatory label into a vital form of
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: citizen journalism. But the defining characteristic of an ethical advocate
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: like Valenti isn't just who she covers. It is the rigorous,
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: often tedious methodology of how she covers them.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: Let's really break down the mechanics of ethical true crime
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: research because it is the polar opposite of reading a
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: Wikipedia page.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: Night and day.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: According to the article, Valente's process is heavily reliant on
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: FOIA requests, the Freedom of Information Act.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: We should really explain how FOIA actually works, because it
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: highlights the sheer dedication required to do this ethically.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, run us through it.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: Filing a FOIA request means formally petitioning a government agency,
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: like a local police department or the FBI, to release
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: unclassified documents related to a case.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: So it's not just a quick Google search.
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: Not at all. It involves navigating complex bureaucratic red tape,
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: paying fees out of pocket for document reproduction, and often
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: waiting months or even years for a heavily redacted file
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: to finally arrive in the mail.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: It is a slow, grueling, deeply unglamorous process, which is
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: exactly why the sensationalist creators don't do it. Right.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: You can't livestream waiting six months for a manila envelope
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: to arrive from the county clerk.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: But Valente explicitly states that these public records are often
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: the most helpful resources available. And beyond FOIA, she dives
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: into databases like the Charlie Project and the Doe Network.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: Those databases are crucial infrastructures. They are nonprofit, volunteer-run databases
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: that meticulously track and profile cold cases, missing persons, and
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: unidentified human remains.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: Unsung heroes, really.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. They operate entirely on the principle of documentation rather
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: than entertainment.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: She also spends hours digging through digitized newspaper archives to
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: understand the historical context of how a case was initially covered.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: And perhaps most importantly, whenever it is possible and appropriate,
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: she directly interviews the family or friends of the victims
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: to ensure that her narrative actually aligns with their lived reality.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: What Lauren Peister is describing in the article is not
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: the behavior of an influencer. It is the exact behavior.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: step-by-step methodology of an investigative journalist. Valente is applying the
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: rigorous standards of traditional reporting to a modern, independent platform.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: And doing that kind of deeply empathetic, granular work takes
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: a massive emotional toll. She isn't recording an episode and
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: then just going out for drinks, you know?
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: No. You carry that with you.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: The article highlights that she approaches every single case with
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: a specific golden rule. She treats the subject the way
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: she would want a researcher to treat the case of
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: her own missing family member.
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: That's a powerful standard.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: With absolute care, respect, and deep compassion. And she admits
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: to the emotional burden of this work. She has literally
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: sat at her computer monitor crying while reading through case
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: files or broken down while speaking on the phone with
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: a grieving mother. She internalizes the gravity of the trauma.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: That emotional permeability is vital. It is. It is the
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: exact antidote to the desensitization that Kate Crane warned about earlier.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: The moment a creator stops feeling the emotional weight of
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: the tragedy, they have crossed the line into exploitation. Valente
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: forces herself to remember that, in her own words, these
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: victims deserve to be remembered and their families deserve to
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: have people listening.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: And because she does the work ethically, she fiercely defends
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: the role of the citizen investigator. She tackles the criticism
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: head on, addressing the people who say that regular, quote unquote,
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: uncredentialed people shouldn't be publicly dissecting serious crimes.
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: And what's her defense?
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: Her defense is deeply pragmatic. She points out that sometimes
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: an independent YouTube video is the absolute only way a
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: forgotten story gets back into the public consciousness. And more importantly,
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: it's often the only way real money gets raised to
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: actually solve the crime.
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: The financial mechanism of advocacy is a critical piece of
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: this puzzle. Law enforcement agencies are notoriously underfunded, particularly when
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: it comes to cold cases.
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: Right. The money runs out.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: Once a case goes cold, the budget for active investigation
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: dries up, period.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: But Valente uses her platform to drive her audience toward
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: fundraisers that directly impact the physical investigation. She helps families
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: raise money to hire private investigators when the police have
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: given up. Or, crucially, she raises funds for genetic genealogy testing.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: We really have to unpack the mechanism of genetic genealogy because...
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: It has completely revolutionized modern cold case investigations, and it
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: is almost entirely reliant on private funding.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: How does it work compared to traditional DNA testing?
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: Well, traditional DNA testing by police only works if the
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: killer's DNA is already in a criminal database like CODIS.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: If the killer has never been arrested before, the DNA
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: is just a dead end.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: Right, nothing to match it to.
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: Genetic genealogy bypasses that entirely. Investigators take the suspect's DNA
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: from the crime scene, and upload it to public commercial
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: DNA databases, the kind regular people use to find out
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: their heritage.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: Like GEDmatch and things like that?
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The system doesn't look for the killer. It looks
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: for the killer's relatives. It might find, say, a third
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: cousin who took a DNA test for fun. Oh, wow.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: Then specialized genealogists, which cost a significant amount of money
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: to hire, build massive family trees backward from that third cousin.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: They navigate census records and birth certificates until they narrow
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: down the branches and identify the suspect.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: That is incredible.
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: This technology has solved decades-old mysteries, but police departments rarely
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: have the budget for it. The funds raised by creators
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: like Valente are literally providing the capital to unlock the
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: science that catches killers.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: Which is just an incredible, tangible public service. And the
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: power of doing things the right way is beautifully illustrated
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: by a very specific story Valente shares in the article.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: The one about the reluctant family? Yes.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: She talks about a case where she identified a missing
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: person she wanted to cover, and she reached out to
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: the family member first, which is standard ethical practice for her.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: But the family member flatly declined to speak with her.
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: And you can entirely understand the family's hesitation there. They
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: have likely been harassed by sensationalist media or burned by
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: armchair detectives. throwing around wild, hurtful theories. Their default setting
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: is protective defense.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: Exactly. So Valente respects their boundary. She doesn't push it.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: She doesn't force it. But she still believes the case
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: needs visibility.
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: So what does she do?
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: She proceeds using only publicly available records, FOIA requests, and
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: archival research. She produces a meticulously researched, highly respectful video.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: And after the video is published, that same hesitant family
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: member actually reaches back out to her.
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: The family member contacted her to apologize for not speaking
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: with her initially.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: They told Valenti that her video was one of the
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: most respectful, accurate, and truthful portrayals of their loved one's
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: case they had ever seen.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: Imagine the validation in that moment. To take a family
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: that is rightfully defensive and to earn their trust entirely
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: through the undeniable ethical quality of your work.
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: It proves it can be done.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: It does. But this brings me to a huge question
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: for you, the listener. If we look at this entire landscape,
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: if traditional law enforcement is dropping the ball so severely
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: that a grieving family's only hope for a resolution relies
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: on a YouTube channel with 200,000 followers raising money for
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: a DNA test.
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: That's a dark thought. It is.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: Are we, as citizens, morally obligated to support these independent advocates?
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: Have we reached a point where the traditional justice system
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: is so fundamentally broken that society actually requires YouTubers to
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: find our missing people?
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: It is a profound indictment of our civic infrastructure. If
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: the delivery of justice has been outsourced to the gig
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: economy and independent content creators, then we are witnessing a
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: systemic failure of the state's most basic duty to protect
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: and serve its citizens.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: That's chilling.
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: However, from a pragmatic standpoint, until those massive systemic issues,
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: the chronic underfunding, the racial biases, the bureaucratic inefficiency of
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: law enforcement, until those are completely overhauled, Creators like Gabby
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: Valente are not just a supplement to the system.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: No, they're the main engine.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: They are the only functioning mechanism left for these families.
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: But operating as that mechanism brings us to the harshest,
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: most cynical reality of everything we have unpacked today. We
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: have proven that ethical, highly respectful true crime coverage can exist.
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: Gabby Valente is the blueprint.
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: She is.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: But the existential question is... can a creator actually survive
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: doing it the right way? Because this brings us to
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: the final massive hurdle, what I want to call the
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: economics of empathy.
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: This is where the idealism of pure advocacy collides violently
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: with the mechanical, algorithmic reality of the internet.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: Valente is fully aware of their ethical minefield, but she
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: also issues a very stark, very bleak warning to anyone
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: who thinks they want to start a channel to help people.
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: She explicitly states that it is incredibly difficult to make
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: a livable income on ethical true crime if you refuse
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: to utilize sensationalism and clickbait.
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: It is the ultimate battle between the algorithm and ethics.
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: And in the digital economy, unfortunately, the algorithm almost always wins.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: Valente puts it so bluntly in the article. She says,
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: and I quote, If your overall goal is to make money,
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: I definitely don't think you're in it for the right reasons,
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: and you will most likely be very let down by
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: the outcome.
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: The platforms that control distribution, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, they're not
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: programmed to evaluate moral integrity.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: Right. The code doesn't have a conscience.
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: Let us examine the actual mechanics of how a platform
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: decides what a user sees. The algorithm is a piece
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: of code designed with a single overarching imperative. Maximize user retention.
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: Keep eyeballs on the screen.
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: Keep the user on the platform as long as possible
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: so they can be served more advertisements. To achieve this,
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: the code measures engagement metrics, click-through rate, watch time, comments,
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: and shares.
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: Pure numbers.
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The algorithm doesn't know the difference between a meticulously researched,
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: deeply empathetic, hour-long documentary about a marginalized victim and a chaotic,
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: screaming 10-minute livestream from a pizza delivery on a crime
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: scene lawn.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: But it definitely knows which one makes people click faster,
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: doesn't it?
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: It absolutely does. Human psychology dictates... that we are wired
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: to react to outrage, shock, and high-contrast emotional stimuli.
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: It's the car crash effect. Right.
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: The screaming livestream generates immediate visceral engagement. The algorithm detects
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: that spike in activity and artificially amplifies the chaotic video,
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: pushing it to millions of feeds.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: And what happens to the ethical video?
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: The ethical creator, whose content is sober, respectful, and lacks
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: a sensationalist hook, is starved of algorithmic oxygen. The system
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: economically rewards the influencer who flies across the country and
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: camps on the lawn. And it actively penalizes the creator
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: who spends six months quietly waiting for a FOIA request.
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: And this economic reality creates what we really need to
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: understand as the sponsorship paradox.
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: Yes, the sponsorship paradox is fascinating.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: Because audiences are highly attuned to the fact that creators
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: make money. Valente points out that viewers often form very harsh,
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: negative opinions of creators who interrupt their true crime videos
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: with brand sponsorships.
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: Oh, the tonal whiplash.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: Exactly. You'll be watching a heartbreaking video about a missing person,
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: and suddenly the creator cuts to a bright, cheery advertisement
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: for a meal delivery kit or a VPN service.
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: And the jarring tonal shift is undeniable. The cognitive dissonance
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: of moving from profound human grief to a discount code
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: for mattresses feels inherently exploitative to the viewer. They immediately
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: accuse the creator of capitalizing on tragedy.
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: But Valenti reveals the invisible mechanics behind that jarring transition.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: She notes that the very audience members leaving angry comments
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: about the mattress ad don't realize that ethical creators use
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: that exact corporate sponsorship money to fund the victim fundraisers.
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: It's a closed economic loop. Right.
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: When the YouTube ad revenue isn't enough to survive because
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: the algorithm is suppressing non-clickbait content, the creator relies on
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: direct brand deals to keep the channel running. And they
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: take the surplus from those brand deals and donate it
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: directly to the private investigators and the genetic genealogists we
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: talked about earlier.
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: The corporate advertisement for the VPN is literally the financial
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: engine that is funding the advocacy and catching the killer.
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: It is a deeply complex, incredibly subjective ecosystem. As Valenti acknowledges,
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: determining the exact objective line where advocacy ends and exploitation
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: begins is nearly impossible because the variables are constantly shifting.
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a moving target.
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: But she distills it down to a fundamental philosophy. It
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: is about intention, respect, and the constant active remembrance that
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: these are not just content pillars. They are human beings.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: And to permanently anchor that philosophy, the A & E
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: article does something incredibly powerful at the very end.
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: Yes, the ending is striking.
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: Lauren Peister asked Valenti to name the specific cases, the
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: actual people, that she will never forget. And rather than
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: just summarizing them for you, I think the only ethical
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: way to handle this material is to do exactly what
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: Valenti fights to do. We need to speak their names
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: out loud.
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: I completely agree. Let us read a selection of the
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: names that Valente provided to really ground this entire theoretical
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: discussion in undeniable reality. Benjamin Ridley.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: Elisa Roberson.
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: Wilma June Nissen. St.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: Louis Jane Doe.
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: Penny Doe.
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: Hearing the names Jane Doe and Penny Doe, I mean,
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: it completely stops you in your tracks.
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: It strips away all the abstraction.
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: It really does. It strips away all the podcast banter,
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: all the arguments about algorithms and click-through rates and all
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: the performative true crime theater. These were human beings whose
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: very identities were violently stripped from them.
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: Erased from the world. Yes.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: And someone sitting at a computer utilizing the exact same
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: internet that causes so much chaos is fighting desperately to
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: give them their names back.
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture... Reading these
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: names removes all the digital abstraction we get caught up in.
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: If we connect every single thread we have pulled today,
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: the pizza delivery, the live tours, the FOIA requests, it
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: all anchors right here. These individuals are not a mystery
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: to be debated on a stage in London. They are
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: not a dopamine hit for an audience that can't get enough.
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: They are human lives that demand absolute, unwavering reverence.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: Which leaves me with a brutal paradox to present to you,
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: the listener.
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: Let's hear it.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: We love to complain about the state of digital media.
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: We sit back and declare that we hate clickbait. We
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: act disgusted by the influencers who treat active crime scenes
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: like interactive playgrounds.
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: We all say we hate it.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: But the cold, hard data, the billions of view counts,
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: the 35 million monthly podcast downloads, shows that sensationalism is
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: exactly what we are clicking on. It is what we
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: are consuming. So I have to ask the uncomfortable question.
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: Are we, the audience, ultimately the ones holding the gun?
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: Are we forcing creators to cross the ethical line into
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: exploitation just so they can survive the algorithm that we
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: feed with our attention?
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: That's a heavy question.
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: Are we the ones effectively paying for that Domino's pizza
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: to be delivered to the crime scene?
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: It is the most uncomfortable mirror that digital age provides.
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: Because every view, every single download, every share, is a
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: direct economic vote for the exact type of media ecosystem
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: we want to exist.
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: We're voting with our clicks.
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: If we continuously reward exploitation and gamification with our attention,
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: we guarantee its survival and its proliferation. The algorithm only
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: reflects our own desires back at us.
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: So as we bring this deep dive to a close,
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: let's synthesize the journey. We started with the jarring image
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: of a gig worker walking into a police perimeter in Tucson.
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: And we ended with the sobering reality of unidentified victims
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: fighting for recognition.
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: A huge spectrum.
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: We have learned that the boundary between true crime advocacy
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: and exploitation is not a fixed line drawn by a
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: platform's terms of service.
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: No, it is not a rigid boundary at all. It
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: is a daily, active practice of respect. It relies entirely
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: on the conscious decision by both the creator behind the
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: microphone and the consumer behind the screen to continually center
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: the grieving families who are trapped inside the mystery, rather
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: than prioritizing the entertainment value of the narrative arc.
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: So the next time you queue up a true crime
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: video on your lunch break, or you turn on a
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: mystery podcast during your morning commute, I want you to
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: actively pause and ask yourself, is the person making this
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: treating a human tragedy like a giant interactive game of Clue?
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: Are they debating suspects for cheers? Exactly.
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: Are they laughing at the darkness while a real family
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: is forced to live inside of it? Or are they
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: doing the grueling, quiet work of centering the human being
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: who was lost? You, the listener, hold the remote. You
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: have the ultimate power to choose what gets amplified and
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: what gets starved of oxygen.
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: The collective attention of the audience is the ultimate unrivaled
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: editorial control in the modern media landscape.
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: It truly is. And I want to leave you with
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: one final lingering thought to mull over long after you
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: take your headphones off.
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: What's the thought?
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: We've seen how deeply flawed and under-resourced our traditional justice
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: systems can be, and we've seen how economically punishing it
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: is for independent creators to to fund ethical advocacy without
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: resorting to the clickbait that the algorithms demand.
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: So if traditional law enforcement continues to be perpetually overwhelmed
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: by the sheer volume of missing persons, and if ethical,
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: respectful true crime creators cannot generate enough ad revenue to
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: survive doing it the right way.
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: Where does that leave us?
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Will the future of human justice eventually be entirely
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: dictated by which missing person gets the most favorable algorithm
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: on TikTok?
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: That is a profoundly chilling prospect for the future of
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: our society and one we must actively guard against.
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. Thank you so much for joining us on this
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: deep dive. Keep questioning the media you consume. Keep demanding
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: a higher standard of empathy. And we will catch you
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: on the next one.