Latest / Murder Files Unsealed / Netflix’s top 10 streaming shows led by true crime series for 2nd week

Transcript

Netflix’s top 10 streaming shows led by true crime series for 2nd week · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the deep dive. This is where we
• 0:02
  take the sources you share, really get into them and
• 0:05
  give you that essential shortcut to knowing what's actually going on.
• 0:08
  So today we're looking at something inescapable and streaming, specifically
• 0:13
  the Netflix Global Top ten the week ending October twenty second,
• 0:17
  twenty twenty five. You send us this huge stack of
• 0:20
  data on the charts, and you know, and everyone talks
• 0:23
  about entertainment always changing, always new stuff.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the churn exactly.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: But this data, it shows one genre just isn't budging.
• 0:31
  It's totally dominant, maybe even a bit of nerving. It's
• 0:34
  true crime.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: That's really the crucial context here. We're past calling it
• 0:38
  just a trend. I mean it feels more like a
• 0:40
  permanent part of the cultural landscape now absolutely. And this
• 0:43
  week's chart, well it paints a pretty chilling picture. It's
• 0:47
  anchored again for the second week running by Monster, the
• 0:51
  ed Gins.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Story number one again, number one.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: And it's not just oh it's a popular show, it's
• 0:56
  more like an event. It forces us to really look
• 0:59
  at the cultural forces, the psychology holding it up. Why
• 1:04
  this story a really grotesque mid century grave robber, Why
• 1:09
  is that shattering records now in twenty twenty five, and.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: The numbers themselves are just wow, nine point five million views.
• 1:16
  That's just this week, just this week, and since it
• 1:18
  dropped on October third, the sources say it's already hit
• 1:21
  over thirty million views total, which is massive.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: It really shows the power of well, a very finely
• 1:27
  tuned machine, right, that algorithmic success.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: So that's our mission for this deep dive. We're going
• 1:32
  to unpack this whole thing. How does the Monster franchise work,
• 1:35
  What does the rest of the top ten tell us?
• 1:37
  And ultimately, what does this obsession with true crime? You know,
• 1:41
  what does it mean for entertainment, for ethics?
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: Where are those lines getting blurred?
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Exactly? Okay, let's dive into this monster hit. First Monster.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Okay, So when we look closely at Monster the edgeines story,
• 1:52
  you immediately see it's not some random hit. It's strategically
• 1:56
  planned a behemoth.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Right. It's Ryan Murphy's franchise.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: That's exactly third one in the series. It's building directly
• 2:02
  on the huge successive Dahmer back in twenty twenty two,
• 2:04
  and then the Menendez brothers won in twenty twenty four.
• 2:07
  So gain's the subject. Sure, But the whole production. It's
• 2:10
  based on proven formula, is metrics that worked before.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: And what a subject he is, Yeah, Ed Geen, He's
• 2:18
  not just another killer name. One source called him the
• 2:21
  great yard poet of horror.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: That's quite a title, it is.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: And maybe younger viewers know Dahmer or Bundy instantly, but
• 2:29
  Geen his influence might actually be deeper, more pervasive in
• 2:33
  media because his crimes back in the fifties, rural Wisconsin. Yeah,
• 2:38
  they literally became the DNA for so much movie horror.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: That's a key point.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: So the series isn't just telling the story. It feels
• 2:43
  like it's tapping into this like half century of dread
• 2:45
  we've absorbed through film.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and to get why the show has such a pull,
• 2:48
  you really needed the backstory, the historical context of his well,
• 2:52
  his complete unraveling. Edward Gain born nineteen oh six grew
• 2:56
  up super isolated in Lacross County, Wisconsin, and the sources
• 2:59
  are really his life was just dominated by his mother, Augusta, described.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: As domineering, Bible thumping.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: Right, very severe, controlling, constantly preaching about hell fire sin.
• 3:12
  Basically kept Gin wrapped in this bubble of religious fear
• 3:15
  and frankly total social awkwardness, dysfunction.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: And knowing that psychological background is so important because the
• 3:21
  shift into well, into the horror. Yeah, it's tied so
• 3:26
  directly to one thing, isn't it.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: Oh? Completely, His whole world just falls apart after Augusta
• 3:30
  dies in nineteen forty five, Right, he couldn't cope. So
• 3:32
  where does he go? The local cemetery. He starts digging
• 3:36
  up graves, specifically looking for women buried recently, women who
• 3:40
  look like his mother, which is just incredibly disturbing on
• 3:43
  the top it is, And it wasn't just vandalism. His
• 3:45
  motivation was well, it's hard to even articulate. He wanted
• 3:49
  to make suits, accessories out of human skin.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Oh god.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: He seemed to believe this could somehow bring her back,
• 3:55
  or maybe let him like become her physically, inhabit her presence.
• 3:58
  It's deeply messed up.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: And it's the specifics, the really macab things they found
• 4:02
  when he was arrested in fifty seven. That's what shifted
• 4:04
  horror right from Dracula and Franken seentist something terrifyingly real, mundane,
• 4:10
  almost absolutely.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: The arrest itself came after Bernice Warden, the local hardware
• 4:15
  store owner, disappeared. Okay, when the police searched games farmhouse,
• 4:19
  I mean what they found basically defined the next wave
• 4:22
  of true crime and horror. Bulls made from skulls lamb,
• 4:26
  shades from scin that, shades from skin. Yeah, and those
• 4:30
  awful suits all made from the bodies of the two
• 4:32
  women he actually murdered, plus the corpses he dug up.
• 4:35
  He ended up in psychiatric institutions for the rest of
• 4:38
  his life, died in eighty four.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: So the show's success, it's not just retelling history. It's
• 4:44
  like activating this fear we've been processing through fiction forever.
• 4:48
  The sources are dead on Geen is the source code.
• 4:52
  You look at Hecker, psycho, the mother fixation, the isolated
• 4:56
  man at creepy house that's ganed Texas, chainsaw massacre, isolation,
• 5:00
  the crafts made from bodies, that feeling of terror in
• 5:03
  the American heartland. Even Hannibal Lecter Okay, more sophisticated, but
• 5:07
  sounds of the lands, that calculated psychological creepiness. It owes
• 5:10
  something to Geen too.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: It does, and the Netflix show absolutely leverages that whole legacy.
• 5:16
  It's basically telling the audience. Yeah, this is where modern
• 5:19
  horror really kicked off.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: And you can't just write it off his trashy exploitation either,
• 5:23
  because the production quality is apparently very high. Ryan Murphy's
• 5:27
  style is there, right.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: That lush cinematography juxtaposed with visceral horror thing he does.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but the sources seem to agree he maybe dialed
• 5:35
  back the melodrama compared to say, Dahmer.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: And that restrain, that perceived restraint, seems key to why
• 5:43
  critics like it more. Charlie Hunnam's performance as gen reviews
• 5:47
  are calling it career defining really yeah, suggesting he nailed
• 5:51
  the complexity that childlike vulnerability masting volcanic rage. One big
• 5:56
  review actually compared his subtle menace to Anthony Hopkins as Lecter,
• 5:59
  So not a monster caricature.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Okay, And you mentioned the supporting cast helps ground it too.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: Definitely. You've got Emma Corn playing Augusta, the mother. She's
• 6:08
  described as this venomous force of repression, which gives you
• 6:11
  the why behind Gaens issues essential contact, and Walton Goggins
• 6:15
  plays the sheriff Artchlay. His investigation was apparently pretty bungled,
• 6:19
  which adds this layer of like procedural grit. It shows
• 6:23
  it wasn't just about Gin's madness but also about how
• 6:25
  small town systems failed to stop him. Right, So, critically,
• 6:29
  it's doing well eighty nine percent on Rot Tomatoes. Variety
• 6:32
  called it Murphy's most restrained yet riveting monster entry.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: And there's always a but with this franchise, the controversy
• 6:39
  is still huge. Oh yeah, we have to talk about
• 6:41
  the social media buzz, those really dark memes about Gins
• 6:44
  quote fashion line. It's this constant tension, isn't it artistic
• 6:50
  merit versus ethical nightmare.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: It's a massive paradox ethically and commercially. You have survivor's advocates,
• 6:57
  quite rightly saying it glorifies violence.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we know.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: The families of his victims. Warden and Mary Hogan protested
• 7:03
  the premiere. They argued it just exploits trauma for clicks,
• 7:06
  the same backlash Dahmer.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: Guy and Murphy's standard defense as always, illumination prevents recurrence.
• 7:12
  The show even ends with something about mental health stigma,
• 7:15
  trying to justify itself. But let me push back on that.
• 7:19
  If the main thing spinning off the show is viral
• 7:22
  memes celebrating skin lampshades. Oh, is that code A really
• 7:26
  educating anyone? Or is it just you know, Sino cover
• 7:30
  ethical padding.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: That is the absolute core tension, and the sources suggests
• 7:34
  Netflix basically counts on this friction. They know that debate
• 7:38
  self generates.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: Huge buzz controversy selves.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: It does, and the show proves the model has staying
• 7:44
  power After Dahmer, I mean, Dahmer pulled in eight hundred
• 7:47
  and fifty six million hours viewed. That formula clearly works.
• 7:51
  It's almost recession proof viewership.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: So how exactly does Netflix make this happen? It's not
• 7:56
  just luck or good timing. We need to get into
• 7:57
  the mechanics the algarithm, so.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: It's entirely engineered. The recommendation engine is the unsung hero
• 8:02
  for Netflix here. It doesn't just suggest gain. It actively
• 8:05
  funnels our massive audience that watched Dahmer straight to it.
• 8:08
  They crack incredibly specific data points like one, not just
• 8:12
  who watched Dahmer, but who finished it? Who rewatched certain scenes,
• 8:15
  often the most traumatic ones. What did they watch immediately
• 8:18
  after other true crime docs. Yeah, so they push the
• 8:21
  andra hardest to the people most likely to click watch
• 8:23
  and finish maximum visibility to the most receptive.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: Eyes, and then you get all the free marketing from
• 8:29
  social media layered on top.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: Precisely the source material specifically mentioned TikTok edits of Hunhum's
• 8:35
  monologues going viral, five hundred million impressions.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: Half a billion just from TikTok just.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: From TikTok edits that kind of organic user generated buzz.
• 8:45
  It's gold. One critic called it algorithmic alchemy. Turning history, trauma,
• 8:50
  and online arguments into guaranteed number one hits solidifies Gan's dominance.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Okay, so Gain is definitely the apex predator here, but
• 8:59
  looking at the rest of the top ten, it's clear
• 9:02
  true crime isn't just one show. It's everywhere, Like the
• 9:05
  source said, weaving through the chart like a dark undercurrent.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really moved beyond being just a genre. It
• 9:10
  feels more like a whole viewing ecosystem.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: Now an ecosystem. That's a good way to put it.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: And if we pull out the other shows that are
• 9:17
  explicitly based on real events, the core true crime cluster
• 9:20
  you see ranks four, six, and seven, and they show
• 9:23
  just how diverse the genre is now. Different themes, global reach,
• 9:28
  everything from family trauma to international incidents to really current
• 9:32
  social issues.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's start with number four, My Father the BTK
• 9:36
  Killer five point seven million views. That sounds very different
• 9:40
  from the glossy gown drama.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: Totally different feel, and it's a really important counterpoint actually,
• 9:45
  because it focuses entirely on the aftermath, not the killer's process,
• 9:48
  not the sensationalism. It's centered completely on Dennis Raider's daughter,
• 9:53
  Carrie per perspective, and the power comes from how intimate
• 9:56
  it is. They use actual home videos alongside raiders awful
• 10:00
  taunting letters.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: So it's just the focus from the monster to the
• 10:03
  human cost.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: Exactly digs deep into that familiar betrayal, which is why
• 10:07
  it resonated so much, got a ninety five percent on
• 10:09
  Rotten Tomatoes. It's about how do you square the monster
• 10:12
  with the dad you thought you knew.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: That must be incredibly powerful to watch, and the structure
• 10:17
  really works the finale where Carrie Rosson actually confronts Raider
• 10:21
  in prison.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: It turns the horror story into something about healing, accountability,
• 10:26
  searching for some kind of closure. It satisfies that need
• 10:30
  viewers have to understand the consequences, not just the crime itself.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: Okay, moving down number six, No one saw us leave
• 10:37
  four point eight million views. This one shows the global
• 10:40
  reach you said.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is significant. It's a Mexican limited series based
• 10:45
  on a real child abduction case from the twenty tens. Okay,
• 10:48
  its success really proves that the core appeal of true crime,
• 10:51
  that fear of safety being violated, the search for justice.
• 10:54
  It's universal, it crosses borders. The story focuses really intensely
• 10:58
  on the mother's raw emotion, her relentless search. There are
• 11:01
  other elements like masad gets involved apparently wow, okay, but
• 11:04
  the procedural stuff feel secondary to that core emotional drive
• 11:08
  for answers. It just hits on those share human fears
• 11:10
  of vulnerability that are the same everywhere.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: And then number seven, The Perfect Neighbor four point three
• 11:16
  million fews. This one sounds much more immediate, contemporary.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is true crime as a direct social mirror.
• 11:22
  It's about a twenty twenty three case in Florida started
• 11:25
  as a fight over trimming trees between neighbors.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Seriously a tree dispute, Yeah.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: A really trivial neighbor feud that escalated until one guy,
• 11:34
  Jerry Lundergan was killed by his neighbor Wayne Dowdy.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Just gut wrenching, and how does the documentary handle that its.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: Power comes from using actual bodycam footage, court records, it
• 11:44
  lays bare the systemic failures that let it get that.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: Far, so it connects as one local tragedy to bigger.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: Issues exactly according to the sources. It uses the specific
• 11:54
  case to critique how systems respond or fail to respond
• 11:57
  to things like domestic disputes before they turn violent. Right
• 12:00
  one analysis called it a stark reminder of true crime
• 12:03
  societal mirror. It explicitly links this neighborhood tragedy to the
• 12:07
  bigger picture of gun violence in America, even citing that
• 12:10
  awful CDC stat forty three thousand firearm deaths in twenty
• 12:14
  twenty four makes it feel very urgent.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: So wow, We've got the big historical drama, the deep
• 12:19
  family reckoning, the global search for justice, and this sharp
• 12:22
  critique of modern society, all under the true crime.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: Banner and all pulling in millions of viewers.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: But that's not all the rest of the list. It
• 12:30
  feels like it's full of shows that borrow from true crime,
• 12:33
  even if they're fiction. Let's look at those proximity genres,
• 12:36
  the thrillers, the mysteries at two, three, and five. They
• 12:40
  seem to feed off the same energy.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: They absolutely do. They're designed to push the same psychological buttons.
• 12:45
  Take number two The Woman in Cabin ten seven point
• 12:48
  two million views, pure fiction, a thriller.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: What's the setup?
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: Travel journalist on a cruise ship thinks she witnesses a
• 12:56
  murder body overboard, but then everyone denies it. How the
• 13:00
  person is supposedly still on board. She gets gas lit. Ah.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: Okay, So it plays on that fear of not being believed,
• 13:06
  being isolated when you know something's wrong.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: Precisely. That claustrophobic tension mirrors true crime's paranoia. As one
• 13:13
  source put it, it taps into those Hitchcockian vibes. It
• 13:17
  works because it uses that classic true crime trope, the
• 13:20
  unreliable victim or the witness nobody believes, creates intense suspense,
• 13:24
  makes you question everything. You get the familiar mystery structure,
• 13:27
  but without the heavy ethical weight of a real case.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: Okay. Then number three Wayward six point one million views.
• 13:35
  This one sounds different again. Supernatural.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is where true crime meets folklore. Almost It's
• 13:40
  a docudrama blends local ghost stories with actual unsolved disappearances
• 13:45
  set in these small, kind of spooky Midwestern towns.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: Interesting hybrid. Why does that work?
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: It's clever because it hits two cravings at once. You
• 13:54
  get the procedural, the mystery of the disappearance, but also
• 13:57
  the eerie unexplained element when a real case goes cold.
• 14:01
  There's this psychological vacuum. People want answers, and sometimes a
• 14:06
  supernatural explanation feels more satisfying than just we don't know.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: So it feels that void exactly.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: One writer called it a gateway drug to monsters horrors.
• 14:14
  It gets viewers comfortable with that feeling of pervasive, maybe inexplicable.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Danger and rounding out this fictional group is number five
• 14:22
  Black Rabbit five point two million views. Sounds like a
• 14:25
  more straightforward procedural.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is high end prestige noir. Jason Bateman stars.
• 14:30
  It's a mystery about a missing Las Vegas showgirl, but
• 14:33
  its success comes from how perfectly it mimics the style
• 14:37
  of true crime docs, unreliable narrators, red herrings, those quick
• 14:41
  cut interview snippets. Even though it's totally scripted.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: And it's got pedigree behind the camera too. Yeah.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: Directed by Lee Janiak, who's seen as a David Fincher protege.
• 14:49
  So it looks great, feels slick got a ninety two
• 14:51
  percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Gives you that puzzle solving satisfaction
• 14:55
  of binging a true crime case, but without the you know,
• 14:58
  emotional drink.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: Okay, So let's quick touch on the last few spots eight, nine,
• 15:01
  and ten the show. There's still some variety. It's not
• 15:04
  all dark crime stuff, right, you need that mix.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: Number eight is Untamed that's described as an ego thriller,
• 15:10
  sort of a forensics procedural, but set around mysterious deaths
• 15:13
  in Yosemite, so nature meets investigation. Number nine is true Haunting.
• 15:19
  Sounds like a doc, but it's actually paranormal horror. James
• 15:23
  Wan is an executive.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: Producer ah The Conjuring Guy.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: Exactly, so it mixes those conjuring style scares with supposedly
• 15:30
  historical elements like referencing real haunting cases like the Smirl family.
• 15:34
  Gives the scares a bit of historical weight.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: And finally, number ten, Genie Make a Wish three point
• 15:41
  one million views definitely breaks the mold.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the whimsical Korean romantic drama. It's the necessary
• 15:48
  palette cleanser, right totally. It's the show you need after
• 15:51
  spending hours watching Geen or BTK, something completely different, light, uplifting.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: But the fact that it's just scraping into the top
• 15:58
  ten while seven others are either straight true crime or
• 16:02
  heavily borrowing from it, it says a lot.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: It tells you everything you need to know about what
• 16:06
  viewers globally are demanding.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: Right now, Okay, the dominance is just undeniable. We've established
• 16:12
  true crime as this whole ecosystem, but we still haven't
• 16:15
  fully answered the big question why m HM. With everything
• 16:18
  else available to watch, why are so many of us
• 16:20
  drawn to these dark, often disturbing stories. We need to
• 16:24
  look at the psychology and also the business side driving
• 16:27
  this wave.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: Psychologically, a lot of the appeal gets traced back to
• 16:31
  believe it or not, evolutionary traits.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Really how so well?
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: Academics talk about morbid curiosity, which sounds bad but maybe
• 16:39
  isn't just a character flaw. It could be an old
• 16:40
  survival mechanis by consuming stories about extreme danger, violence, predators, murder,
• 16:46
  but doing it from a safe distance. Our brains might
• 16:49
  actually be running threat.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: Simulations, like practicing for danger without actually being in danger.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: Exactly, sharpening our threat detection our response mechanisms just in
• 16:59
  case we face something similar in the real world. So
• 17:01
  we're not just watching passively. Our brains are, like you said,
• 17:04
  taking notes.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: Okay, that makes a kind of primal sense.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: What else tied into that is the need for control.
• 17:11
  I mean, look around. We live in pretty anxious times,
• 17:13
  right understatement global instability. You mentioned the FBI reporting crime
• 17:19
  rates tacking up five percent and twenty twenty four, political uncertainty,
• 17:22
  climate anxiety, it's a lot.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: These true crime stories, especially the solved ones, they offer
• 17:28
  narrative certainty. When you binge Geen or the BTK doc,
• 17:31
  you know how it ends, The bad guy gets caught,
• 17:33
  locked up, whatever.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: Right, there's a resolution unlike real life.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: Sometimes exactly that closure is comforting because, as one source
• 17:40
  put it, we know the ending, unlike real headlines, which
• 17:44
  often just leave you hanging in fear uncertainty.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: And the fact that shows like no one saw us
• 17:49
  leave from Mexico or hits proves this isn't just an
• 17:51
  American thing, right, That need for narrative safety is global.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. The themes are universal, protecting your kids, your home, being violated,
• 18:01
  police maybe not responding effectively. Those fears are the same
• 18:05
  in Wisconsin or Mexico City or anywhere. It makes the
• 18:08
  stories instantly relatable, no matter the language you're setting.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: Okay, so that's the psychology. Now, how is modern tech, streaming,
• 18:17
  social media pouring fuel on this fire? It feels way
• 18:21
  more interactive now than just watching TV used to be.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: Oh massively. The sources really zero in on the rise
• 18:26
  of participatory.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: Sleuthing, participatory sleeping.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you see it everywhere on TikTok. That hashtag hashtag
• 18:32
  true crime Talk apparently has over.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: Two billion views two billion. Wow.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's driven by regular people, influencers, amateur detectives, all
• 18:39
  sharing theories, deep dives, analyzing clues. Then you add in
• 18:43
  the huge professional podcast like Crime Junkie fifty million downloads
• 18:46
  a month.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: So watching isn't passive anymore. People jump straight from the
• 18:50
  show to discussing it, theorizing, sometimes even trying to solve
• 18:54
  cold cases themselves from.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: Their couch Exactly. It becomes an active hobby and Netflix
• 18:58
  is smart about this. They deliberately the lines also well,
• 19:01
  the sources mentioned that the Guines series actually included QR
• 19:05
  codes in the show, QR codes leading where to victim
• 19:08
  memorials online. It's subtle, but it gives the viewer a
• 19:12
  way to interact, to feel like they're doing something more
• 19:14
  than just consuming trauma, like they're participating in remembrance or
• 19:19
  raising awareness.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: Which probably makes them feel more invested, more justified in watching.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: Precisely, heightens engagement, validates the time spent PLT.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: Brings us right back to that really tricky question. Is
• 19:30
  all this engagement actually cathartic educational or is it just
• 19:35
  you know, trauma porn dressed up exploitation, And.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: That's where the business reality slams right into the ethical debate.
• 19:42
  There was a twenty twenty five USC study that puts
• 19:45
  some numbers on this tightrope.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: Wise, okay, what did it find.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: It found that sixty percent of true crime viewers said
• 19:51
  they felt more vigilant, more aware of risks afterwards. That's
• 19:54
  the positive spin, the educational outcome, right, But twenty five percent,
• 19:58
  a full quarter of viewers reported spikes in their own
• 20:01
  anxiety levels.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: So for a significant chunk of the audience, it's actually
• 20:05
  making them more anxious.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It's generating the very feeling it supposedly helps manage
• 20:10
  through those threat simulations. It's a real double edged sword.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: So how does a company like Netflix navigate that, knowing
• 20:18
  their product causes anxiety in a quarter of its users,
• 20:21
  how do they justify churning out so much of it?
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: Well, ethically, they do things like add content warnings, They
• 20:28
  partner with victim advocacy groups, provide resources. That's the public
• 20:32
  facing mitigation, But the underlying driver, let's be honest, it's
• 20:35
  the business case. True crime delivers an incredibly high return
• 20:39
  on investment.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's break that down. Why is it such a
• 20:41
  good investment for them? The ROI numbers must be huge.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: They are primarily because it's way cheaper to make than
• 20:47
  most other genres that get similar engagement levels. Cheaper how documentaries,
• 20:51
  even high end ones, often cost less than five million
• 20:54
  dollars an episode. Compare that to a big sci fi
• 20:58
  or fantasy show, which can easily be ten million dollars
• 21:01
  or more per episode.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: Great big difference, And.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: The classic example everyone points to is Damer The whole
• 21:07
  series costs something like twenty two million dollars to make.
• 21:10
  Peanuts by prestige TV.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: Standards, okay, and the return.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: The sources estimate it generated around five hundred million dollars
• 21:17
  in value for Netflix.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Half a billion dollars from a twenty two million dollars show.
• 21:22
  How did to even calculate that value?
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's staggering, and it's not just about direct revenue
• 21:27
  from that one show. It's mainly about subscriber acquisition and
• 21:30
  maybe even more importantly, subscriber retention.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: Ah Stopping people from canceling.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: Exactly, a huge talked about hit like Dahmer or Gin
• 21:39
  keeps people subscribed who might otherwise leave. It also brings
• 21:42
  new people onto the platform who want to see what
• 21:44
  everyone's talking about.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: So that guaranteed viewership translates into hundreds of millions in
• 21:49
  brand value keeping subscribers locked in, which is crucial when
• 21:53
  everyone's fighting for streaming dollars.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: Totally vital in this super saturated market. That high ROI
• 21:59
  gives Netflix a massive weapon in the streaming wars.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: And the data shows they're winning with it right now.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Netflix basically has a choke hold on major
• 22:07
  viewership right now. One source Samba TV. They're a key
• 22:12
  third party company tracking viewership across devices.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: Right is an independent picture.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: They estimate Netflix commands something like eighty percent of the
• 22:20
  cross platform streaming chart dominance, just huge market share.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: And competitors trying to copy the true crime playbook. Yeah,
• 22:28
  they're not keeping up.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: They're trying, but they're lagging mostly in sheer volume and
• 22:32
  that algorithmic precision we talked about. Like Hulu put out
• 22:35
  the Murdaw Murders docuseries, very similar kind of buzzy true
• 22:39
  crime hit around the same time as Gin. It did okay,
• 22:41
  four point two million views, but that's less than half
• 22:44
  of what Gen pulled in Wow, Prime, Vio, Hbo Max.
• 22:46
  They had their hits too, But Netflix's advantage is to
• 22:48
  scale over seven hundred originals and that recommendation engine, pushing
• 22:53
  the stuff they know works, the high ROI true crime
• 22:55
  right to the top of your feed.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: And with Netflix projected to hit maybe three hundred million
• 23:00
  subscribers by twenty twenty six, the pressure to keep making
• 23:04
  this cost effective, high engagement true crime content. It's only
• 23:08
  going to increase, isn't it.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: Financially It's almost a no brainer for them. The demand
• 23:12
  is there, the cost is relatively low, the return is massive.
• 23:16
  Hashtag tag outro. So if we try to pull it
• 23:19
  all together, what these charts really show us this week,
• 23:22
  from gens sitting at the top to those smaller, maybe
• 23:25
  more nuanced stories further down, it reflects this deep collective
• 23:29
  cultural thing going on, a real hunger for stories that
• 23:32
  confront the abyss, like we said, but stories that also
• 23:35
  offer that feeling of narrative.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: Safety, right the resolution.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and we seem drawn to stories that show evil
• 23:40
  isn't always some distant monster. It's often right there in
• 23:43
  the familiar. It Gin's quiet farm, that neighborly dispute in
• 23:46
  Florida that turns deadly in the perfect neighbor By watching,
• 23:50
  by dissecting these monsters, maybe we're searching for understanding, maybe
• 23:53
  even trying to feel a little more in control.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: Ourselves, and maybe that need to understand, that reflection, Maybe
• 23:59
  that's the admission. You know, we're consuming these difficult stories,
• 24:03
  processing these deem fears, but we have to keep asking
• 24:06
  that hard question, what's the cost, especially the cost of
• 24:10
  the living. Exactly as we binge these stories about people's
• 24:13
  worst moments, their trauma, their deaths, we have to stay
• 24:16
  aware of where that line is, the line between genuine
• 24:21
  insight illumination and just straightforward profitable exploitation.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: And the future might make that line even blurrier. The
• 24:29
  sources mentioned Netflix is already looking ahead talking about bolder hybrids.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: Bolder hybrids likewise, it's like.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: VR recreations of crime scenes you can walk through, or
• 24:38
  AI generating suspect sketches based on evidence, maybe delivered right
• 24:41
  to your phone while you watch Wow Okay.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: That definitely raises the stakes.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: It does, which brings us to the final thought for you,
• 24:48
  the listener, as you think about what you click on next.
• 24:51
  As we keep chasing these monsters for entertainment, is there
• 24:54
  a risk are we as a culture maybe getting desensitized?
• 24:58
  And where do we draw the line? Where should that
• 24:59
  ethical boundry be, especially when the True Crime of Tomorrow
• 25:02
  starts using really immersive tech