Latest / True Crime Reactions / SERIAL KILLER: L.I.S.K. | Case Reaction & Analysis

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SERIAL KILLER: L.I.S.K. | Case Reaction & Analysis · True Crime Reactions

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So in April twenty eighteen, this audio file drops on
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: the Internet and it's detailing this forgotten burial ground of
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: a serial killer on Long Island.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a very dark, very localized American.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Story, right. But within months, this exact same file is
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: being downloaded fully translated by people, you know, riding a
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: train in Vanuatu, or sitting at a cafe in Yemen.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Or just walking through their neighborhood in Bhutan.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: It's everywhere, exactly. It's totally global. So welcome to the
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Deep Dive. I'm your host, and today we're looking at
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: how this incredibly terrifying, highly localized mystery gets packaged for
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: the entire world, right, And.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: I'm glad to be here to break this down because
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: we are specifically unpacking the narrative footprint of a piece
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: of true crime media.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: The Crime Junkie broadcast.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Right. Yes, the release is titled serial Killer Lisk from
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: the audio Check Network. And just to establish our parameters
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: right out of the gate here, we are looking strictly
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: at the provided metadata.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Just the metadata and the official episode synopsis.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: Exactly the synopsis and the platform presence of this specific release.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Our mission today is not to reinvestigate the Long Island
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: serial killer case itself.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: No, definitely not. We're not solving the.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: Case here, right, We want to dissect the mechanics of it.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: How does this grim reality get transformed into a globally consumed,
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: fifty three minute interactive narrative.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: So pull up a chair, because you know, if you
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: scroll through your own audio feeds right now, you probably
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: subscribe to something similar.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: I mean, most people have at least one favorite true
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: crime show.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but you rarely stop to think about the actual
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: machinery behind it. The packaging, exactly, the packaging. We're dealing
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: with a young woman who goes missing in twenty ten.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: We have systemic apathy, we have a loan detective with
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: his dog, and that.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: Stomach churning discovery of a literal burial ground.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's heavy, and then we have this bizarre reality
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: of an intimate tragedy becoming a massive, you know, media commodity.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: So let's just start right at the beginning the synopsis
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: they provided.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Okay, so the inciting incident, at least as it's presented
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: in the text, takes us back to twenty ten. A
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: young escort goes missing after an out call on Long Island.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: And the synopsis immediately anchors the whole story with this
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: one phrase.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: The no one bothers phrase.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: Yes, no one bothers to search for her.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: That wording is just it does so much work instantly,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Like highlighting that she is an escort on an out call.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: It establishes a very specific kind of vulnerability right away.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because an out call means she's traveling to the
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: client right exactly.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: She is leaving her own controlled environment. She's entering an
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: unfamiliar space, completely on someone else's turf.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: It's just an inherently isolated position to be in.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: It really is. And the storytellers use those specific details
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: to set this scene of social marginalization.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: To kind of prep the listener.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So by the time the text hits you with
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: no one bothers to search for her, the groundwork is
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: already laid.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Wow. So it's not like, oh, the police didn't have
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: the budget.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: No, this isn't a failure of sources. It's a failure
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: of will. The text basically functions as a harsh indictment
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: of societal and institutional priorities.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Which makes sense because predatory individuals kind of operate in
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: those margins.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: Precisely they rely on fact that institutions will just look
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: the other way when a vulnerable person disappears.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: And I think for you listening, we have to ask
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: whether this apathy is just a tragic bug in the system,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: or if it's literally a feature of how institutions operated
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: back in twenty ten.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: It's a great question because you look at the media
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: discrepancy in these cases.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's night and day. Like, if a college student
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: from a wealthy suburb goes missing, you get round the
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: clock news coverage.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: You get the helicopters, the press conferences everything.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but here the text explicitly says they didn't quote bother.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: It's like society just hung a do not disturb sign
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: on her disappearance.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: That's a really good way to put it. It forces
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: the audience to confront this very uncomfortable reality about how
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: society assigns value to human life. Yeah, and you know,
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: the true crime genre often relies heavily on that exact contrast. Yeah,
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: the victim's worth versus the systems.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: Neglect because it makes you angry, exactly.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: By stating that no one bothered, the synopsis uses just
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: a few words to establish a profound injustice, which.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Is like the emotional engine for the rest of the show.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: It's the absolute prerequisite for the horror that follows.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: And that is exactly where the synopsis pivots, because while
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: the system as a whole totally fail, there was this
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: one exception, right, and that exception changes the entire trajectory
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: of the case. It takes it from this cold missing
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: persons file into something entirely different.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: Right, because the text tells us that the only ones
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: looking for this missing young woman are a quote single
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: detective and his dog.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: The imagery there is just incredibly stark.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: It's a total contrast.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you have this massive absence of a coordinator response
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: on one side, and on the other side you literally
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: just have a lone guy and a dog out in
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: the brush on Long Island.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: It leans so heavily into that classic ne rative archetype. Yeah,
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: you know, the solitary seeker of justice, the lone wolf exactly.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: But if we look at it from an analytical perspective,
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: it exposes a catastrophic breakdown of standard operating procedure, right.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Because a missing person search shouldn't just be.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: One guy, no, especially someone last seen in a highly
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: vulnerable scenario. That should involve a coordinated grid search.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: Like multiple agencies.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: Multiple agencies, technological surveillance, dedicated manpower.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: But the phrase single detective just highlights that the system
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: broke down completely. The pursuit of truth was just reduced
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: to a rogue outlier.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and some might read that and think, oh, it's
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: a miraculous stroke of luck.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Sure, like, thank goodness, he was there.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: Right, thank goodness, this one dedicated guy was out there
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: doing the work. But I look at that and think,
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: does it actually just highlight how deeply flawed? The initial response.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: Was how fragile the whole infrastructure is.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, if finding a missing person relies entirely on the
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: initiative of one detective who happens to have a canine partner,
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: that's not a working system.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: No, that's a system undergoing a massive stress test and
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: completely failing.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: It's like pulling a single loose thread on a sweater.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah right, Yeah, and you just watch the whole thing
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: unravel into an absolute nightmare. That is an excellent way
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: to frame it, because the systemic failure is the landscape,
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: and this detective is just one person walking through.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: It and what he finds changes literally everything.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: Because the synopsis notes that while they're searching, they stumble
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: upon a burial ground, which.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: Is such a heavy choice of words, burial ground.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: It's very deliberate.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they didn't describe it as a crime scene or
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: even a shallow grave. A burial ground implies this terrifying
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: level of permanence.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: Permanence and scale. It implies history. Criminologically speaking, a disposal
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: site is just where a killer leaves a body in
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: a panic, But a burial.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: Ground it suggests something organized.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: Yes, a geographic location utilized repeatedly, methodically over very long
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: period of time.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: Which just instantly shifts the paradigm of the whole story exactly.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: We're no longer talking about a single isolated crime.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: In twenty ten, the detective and his dog have inadvertently
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: unearthed a historical site of systematic violence.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: And the synopsis doesn't even just leave it there. It
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: introduces this massive, terrifying ambiguity right after that discovery.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, the text actually says the burial ground belongs
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: to a serial killer or killers.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: The punctuation is doing so much heavy lifting in that sentence.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: The literal question mark at the end right.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: And the pause before or killers. It forces the listener
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: to really consider the ramifications of pluralizing that threat.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Because it completely changes the math of the investigation. I mean,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: if you're looking for one serial killer, you're dealing with
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: a deeply complex manhunt.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: Sure, right, but you're still tracking a single psychological profile.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: Exactly, a single modus operandi. But if you introduce killers
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: plural now it's like trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: where the pieces actually belong to three completely different boxes.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: And they've all just been dumped onto the same table.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: Yes, total chaos.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: Pluralizing the threat transforms a straightforward man hunt into absolute
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: investigative chaos.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: Because it suggests what a shared dumping ground, a shared.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: Dumping ground, or perhaps a broader phenomenon of violence occurring
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: in this one isolated area of Long Island.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: It suggests it's not just one isolated monster.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: No, it could be a terrifying coincidence of multiple perpetrators
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: utilizing the same geographical shadow yep, completely undetected by the authority.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: Who, as we already established, didn't even bother.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: To look exactly.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: But okay, we have to look at this through the
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: lens of media packaging, because we have to ask, is
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: adding or killers just a dramatic.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: Cliffhanger, right, like, is it just marketing? Yeah?
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: Is it just designed to keep you hooked for a
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: fifty three minute audio show or does it reflect genuine
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: boots on the ground investigative chaos on Long Island.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: The very valid question regarding their intent, because true crime
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: has a habit of prioritizing the most sensational theory over
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: the logical one always. But the genius of the synopsis
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: quality from a marketing perspective is that it leverages that
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: real investigative chaos to create suspense.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: It doesn't give you the answer.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: No, it forces you to consume the media to find out.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: And it culminates in branding this case as one of
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: America's greatest unsolved mysteries, which is.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: Just wild to watch happen in real time, the mythologization
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: of a crime. This started as a local outcaul that
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: was completely ignored, and eight years later, in twenty eighteen,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: it's being framed alongside the Zodiac Killer or Jack the Ripper.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: The passage of time is what does that. It takes
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: the gritty, awful reality and sands down the.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: Edges until it just becomes American folklore.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: Right and That time gap from the twenty ten disappearance
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: to the April twenty eighteen broadcast is.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Crucial because over those eight years, the apathy turned into
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: public outrage, the horror of.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: The burial ground grew in the public consciousness.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: And this localized tragedy was just elevated into a cornerstone
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: of national true crime.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: Media, which naturally brings us to the machinery that actually
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: built that cornerstone, the storytellers and the infrastructure behind this broadcast.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Yes, let's get into the metadata because it gives us
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: a really clear look at how this story is packaged.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: So we're looking at a runtime of exactly fifty three minutes. Okay,
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: it's published by the audio Chuck channel, hosted by Ashley
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: Flowers and brit pro Wat, and interestingly, it holds a
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: clean rating.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: Okay, that clean rating is just a fascinating data point
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: when you consider what we're actually talking about here. It
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: really is like, how does a platform designate a story
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: about a serial killer's burial ground as clean?
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: It seems like a contradiction, doesn't it Totally?
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: The reality of what happened to those women is as
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: far from clean as you can possibly get. It just
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: shows how sanitized the delivery system of modern media has become.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: Right, you strip out the profanity, yeah, you.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Make sure the language fits within advertiser guidelines, and suddenly
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: a story about systematic murder is totally safe for corporate sponsorship.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: It speaks to the intense professionalization of the true crime genre.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: Audio Chuck isn't presenting this as a sordid, gritty underground tape.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: No, it's highly polished, highly.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: Polished, accessible, and algorithmically friendly. That clean tag ensures it
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: isn't restricted by parental controls on Apple or Spotify.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Oh wow, I didn't even think about parental controls.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it guarantees brand safety for major advertisers. They
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: don't want their products associated with explicit language.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: Even if the underlying topic is inherently violent. Exactly, but honestly,
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: the most staggering part of this media packaging, to me
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: at least, is the interactive element.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: The fan club.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: Yes, right there in the description, listeners are invited to
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: join a fan club, a fan club for a show
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: that details real human tragedies, and.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: They offer ad free listening in exchange for joining.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: Right, And on top of that, there are these heavily
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: promoted social media hands across TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: What we're looking at there is the deliberate construction of
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: a parasocial relationship.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, building that bond.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: The hosts are actively building an environment where the audience
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: feels deeply personally connected to them, and they're using the
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: vehicle of a horrific crime to forge that bond.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: And nothing exemplifies that parasocial bond more than the phone.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: Number that really stood out in the metadata.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: The text explicitly gives out a direct line. It says,
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: quote text Ashley at three one seven seven three three
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: seven four eight five to talk all things true crime,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: get behind the scenes, updates, and more.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: It is a highly sophisticated marketing tactic.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: By utilizing SMS marketing.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: Yes, because it bypasses crowded email in boxes, It bypasses
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: social media algorithms entirely.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: It goes right to your phone.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: The text message goes directly to the most personal device
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: that consumer owns. It creates this illusion of one on
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: one intimacy.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Like you aren't just a passive listener any no, you.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: Are someone who literally has the host's phone number in
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: your contacts, which is.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: Just the juxtaposition is wild. It's fascinating, it really is.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: You are listening to a story about a woman who
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: is utterly isolated, who fell into the margins of society
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: and was forgotten. But to consume that story, you are
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: invited into an exclusive, highly social VIP.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: Club where you can text the host directly.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: Like she is a buddy giving you gossip. It's like
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: turning a terrifying campfire ghost story into an interactive, multi
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: platform VIP event.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: And this level of intimate access is exactly what makes
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: the content so exportable. Right, they aren't just selling a
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: local crime, they are selling a relationship.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: And that relationship clearly scales globally because this interact to
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: VIP event is not limited to the borders of the
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: United States, not at all.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: The infrastructure required to distribute this content relies on very
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: sophisticated tech platforms. The metadata actually notes the involvement of
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: the platforms operated by ads Whiz and simple Cast.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: So for you listening who might not be familiar with
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: the back end of digital audio, how do those platforms
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: actually facilitate this global scale?
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: Well, simple cast is the hosting infrastructure. It's the engine. Okay,
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: it takes this single fifty three minute audio file and
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: it blasts it out via RSS feeds to every podcatcher
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: on the planet, Apple, Spotify, Google, you name it.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: So it handles the heavy lifting of the distribution exactly.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: It handles the immense bandwidth required when millions of people
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: try to download a file simultaneously.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: And then what about ads Whiz.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: Ads Whiz, on the other hand, is the monetization engine. Okay,
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: it is a global audio advertising platform that uses dynamic
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: ad insertion.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Wait, so, dynamic ad insertion that means the ads change
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: based on who is listening and where.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: They are exactly the audio file itself just has blank
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: markers in it. Oh so, when a listener in Tokyo
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: downloads the file, ads Whiz reads their IP address and
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: instantly stitches in a Japanese.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: Advertisement tailored to that specific region.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: Yes, and they're demographic. And then when a listener in
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: London downloads the exact same file a second later, they
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: hear a.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: British ad class wild.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: This technology is what allows a localized story from Long
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: Island to become a highly profitable, globally monetized commodity.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Without the creators ever having to negotiate international ad deals themselves.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: Precisely this season does it automatically.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: That perfectly explains the jaw dropping global footprint we see
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: in the source material.
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: It's massive.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, The list of international availability for this specific narrative
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: is just it's exhausting just to read.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: The global reach is staggering. The text specifically notes translated.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: Versions right, actual translation.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: Yes, available in Spanish, Arabic, Russian, simplified and traditional, Chinese, French, Korean, Portuguese,
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: and Vietnamese.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Just think about the logistics of that for a second.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: We aren't just talking about making it an English file
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: available overseas. We are talking about active translation and distribution
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: into regions that have absolutely zero cultural connection to the
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: geography of New York or the.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Police jurisdictions or the culture of Long Island.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: Outcolls exactly. The list covers Africa, the Middle East, India,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: the Asia, Pacific, Europe, Latin America. It's ubiquitous.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: If we examine the geopolitical spread from the source, the
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: penetration is really remarkable. Let's hear some of them in
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: Africa and the Middle East alone. This story is available
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: in Algeria, Eswatini, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Madagascar, Saudi Arabia, Yemen,
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: and Zimbabwe.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: It is just surreal to picture someone in Eswatini or
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Yemen tuning in to hear about a lone American detective
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: searching the Long Island brush and.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: The Asia Pacific reach is just as vast Afghanistan, Bhutan, Cambodia, Mainland, China, Japan, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Vanawatu.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: Which really just raises a fundamental question about media consumption.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: Why does it resonate? Yeah?
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: Why does a highly localized Long Island tragedy from twenty
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: ten resonate across the Middle East, the Asia Pacific and Europe?
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: What is driving this global appetite for American True.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: It's a complex psychological question.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: I just wonder if it's because despite the hyper specific
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: American details, the core of the story taps into these
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: universal human fears.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: Oh. Absolutely, A burial ground is a terrifying concept in
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: any language.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: Right, And the failure of institutions to protect the vulnerable that.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: Is a frustration understood in almost every society on Earth.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree completely. The emotional beats just transcend cultural boundaries.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: And if you look at the archetype of the loan
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: detective seeking justice, against all odds. That's a narrative structure
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: recognized globally.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: It's universally compelling.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: So when this episode is translated into Arabic or Russian
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: or Vietnamese, the highly specific cultural event is sort of universalized.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: So the victim becomes a stand in for all vulnerable
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: people everywhere.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: Exactly, and the detective becomes an avatar for anyone who
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: has ever had to fight a broken system.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Let's look at Europe and Latin America from the sourceless too, Albania, Belarus, Denmark, Kosovo, Moldova.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: And down to Anguilla, Bolivia, Honduras, surname Uruguay.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Think about this for a second. The isolated, lonely tragedy
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: of a young woman on Long Island is being broadcast
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: to someone sitting in a cafe in Vietnam or riding
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: a train in Switzerland.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: It's a literal global stage.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: It takes a deeply intimate local failure and puts it
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: on that global stage. But and this is where we
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: have to really think. When you translate a real person's
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: death into an entertainment product across eight languages, what gets
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: lost in that translation, Well, that.
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: Is the central tension of the true crime machine, isn't it.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: Audio Chuck and platforms like it have built an incredible
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: global consumer base, and they're all bound together by this
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: shared interest in the macaqu But does packaging this case
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: as one of America's greatest unsolved mysteries and broadcasting it
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: to dozens of sovereign nations actually aid in the pursuit.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: Of justice or does it merely feed an insatiable global
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: appetite for dark.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: Narratives, generating revenue through ads, wiz and simple casts along
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: the way.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: Some might argue that, you know, bringing global attention to
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: a forgotten victim forces authorities to.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: Act that the spotlight itself is a form of public service.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but when that spotlight requires joining a fan club
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: for ad free listening or texting a host for behind
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: the scenes updates.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: The line between advocacy and exploitation gets incredibly blurry.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: It really does.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: And the source material we've analyzed today, the metadata, the
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: synopsis of the global platform data, it provides a very
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: clear blueprint of exactly how that blurring occurs.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: It literally shows the transformation of trauma into.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: Content step by step.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: It really is a heavy thing to sit with, so
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: to kind of summarize our deep dive today for everyone listening.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: We started by looking at the harsh reality of societal
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: apathy right back in twenty ten on Long Island, where
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: a vulnerable young woman vanished and institutions simply did not
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: bother to look.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: And then we followed the solitary path of a single
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: detective and his dog.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: Whose search totally shattered the illusion of an eye slated incident.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: And unearthed the historical burial ground.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: We analyze the deliberate, escalating language used by the storytellers
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: that terrifying pivot to killer or killers.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: And how the Audio Chuck Network packaged this real investigative
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: chaos into a sanitized fifty three minute experience with.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: A clean rating no less right.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: We broke down the mechanics of the true crime machine,
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: examining the parasocial relationships built through SMS, marketing and fan clubs.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: And the technological infrastructure like ads wiz and simple cast
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: that dynamically monetizes this content all over the world.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: And finally, we zoomed all the way out to see
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: this local tragedy broadcast to dozens of countries.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: From Azerbaijan, Tel Salvador in over eight different languages, proving that.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: While crimes happen locally, the audience for them is truly borderless.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: It is a remarkable footprint for a single tragic narrative.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: It really is, which leaves you with something to moll
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: over today. If you look at your own podcast feed
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: right now, consider the real lives behind the audio.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: Files, the real people.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what happens to a victim's memory when their very real,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: very painful tragedy becomes the foundation for a global fan
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: club and a massive media empire.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: Does this unprecedented global reach and highly interact to storytelling
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: ultimately help bring justice to those who are forgotten?
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Or does it risk turning their grim reality into mere
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: background entertainment for someone riding a train on the other
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: side of the world. Keep looking closely at the media
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: you consume, and keep asking questions.