Latest / The Original Self Podcast / Episode 12- Part 1: True Crime Obsession Explained | The Psychology Behind Why You Can't Stop Watching

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Episode 12- Part 1: True Crime Obsession Explained | The Psychology Behind Why You Can't Stop Watching · The Original Self Podcast

0:13
Welcome to the Original Self Podcast. I'm Evet
0:17
DeCota, owner of DeCota Life Coaching and a psychology
0:20
-informed life coach. I explore resilience, mindset,
0:25
and the courage to become your authentic self.
0:29
This is a space for honest conversations about
0:32
growth, identity, relationships, and all the
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messy moments in between that shape who we become.
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Between the salon chair and coaching sessions,
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I've watched people move through life in patterns
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they rarely notice, patterns that are subtle,
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familiar, and incredibly hard to see from the
0:53
inside. Today, we're talking about one of the
0:57
most fascinating and under -examined patterns
1:00
of our time. A pattern that most of us share
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and almost none of us question. This is episode
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12, part 1, True Crime Obsession Explained, the
1:13
psychology behind why we can't stop watching
1:16
this. Hi, and welcome back. I'm really glad you're
1:34
here today because I think this topic is one
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that almost everyone has a relationship with,
1:40
even if that relationship is one that you haven't
1:42
fully examined yet. Let me paint a picture for
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you. It's 10 o 'clock on a Tuesday night. You
1:50
told yourself you're going to bed early. You're
1:53
very tired, and yet... Here you are, one episode
1:58
deep into a four -part docu -series about a murder
2:00
that happened in 1987. You're fully invested
2:05
in a case you've never heard of three hours ago.
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The laundry's still in the dryer, the book on
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your nightstand has not moved in a week, but
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you're absolutely unshakably committed to finding
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out who did it. Maybe yours looks different.
2:23
Maybe it's a podcast. on your commute to work
2:26
that you can't stop thinking about all day long.
2:30
Maybe it's a live court hearing you have streaming
2:32
in the background because you need to know the
2:36
verdict in real time. Maybe it's a YouTube channel
2:40
that reconstructs cold cases or even a Reddit
2:44
thread where thousands of strangers are collectively
2:47
solving something that police have not been able
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to in years. Whatever the form it takes for you,
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I want you to know something important before
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we go any further. You're not alone. You're not
3:00
strange or a weirdo. True crime is the number
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one most listened to podcast genre in the world.
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It generates billions of streaming hours annually.
3:15
And women are the vast majority of its listeners.
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So The question I want to sit with today is not
3:24
whether we are fascinated. We already know that.
3:27
The question is, why are we fascinated? The question
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beneath that is, what's the fascination doing
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to us? In both ways, helping us and ways that
3:41
may cost us something we haven't even named yet.
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That's what we're exploring today. Before we
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go any further, I would love for you to sit with
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just one question. You don't have to answer it
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out loud, but just notice what comes up. How
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do you feel after you're watching a true crime
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or listening to a true crime episode? Not during
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it, but afterward? When you close the app or
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you turn off the screen, are you left with whatever
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emotion is sitting in your body? for some time?
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Hold on to that answer, because we're going to
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come back to it. When I was thinking about this
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podcast, I started to think about when true crime
4:32
fascination started for me. And I realized it
4:35
was long before I knew what true crime was. Maybe
4:39
even before the entire genre was possible. I
4:45
was nine years old. It was Thanksgiving break
4:48
in 1978 and I was watching the soap opera The
4:52
Young and the Restless with my mom when the program
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was interrupted by the news for a news bulletin.
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The reporter said that the San Francisco mayor
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George Moscone and the city supervisor Harvey
5:08
Milk had been assassinated inside of City Hall.
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apparently shot by a colleague who at his trial
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became infamous for his Twinkie defense, which
5:20
was a diminished capacity argument that earned
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him a dramatically reduced sentence. It was just
5:27
nuts. When the news reporter said that the two
5:32
were assassinated, I remember my mom gasping
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and it kind of startled me. The news stayed on
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in our house for I don't know, maybe two days
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nonstop. I didn't fully understand the politics,
5:48
but I understood enough, including how the media
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tried to minimize Harvey Milk, just focusing
5:56
the coverage of the assassination on Moscone
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and then using milk's sexuality to push him to
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the margins. I also understood what I saw in
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my mom's face. The world just revealed something
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about itself that I hadn't known before, that
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regular people in regular buildings at regular
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jobs could be erased simply for who they were.
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At that age, I didn't have the words for what
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I was feeling, but I now know it was the first
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time my nervous system registered that the world
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contained a category of danger that had nothing
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to do with me personally. and everything to do
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with what humans were capable to doing to one
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another. I don't think that feeling has ever
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fully left me. I just think it's grown a little
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more sophisticated over time. Then came OJ. If
6:58
you were alive and paying attention between 1994
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and 1995, you already know. There's nothing I
7:05
can tell you about the OJ Simpson trial that
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will be new information. I can tell you what
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it was like to live inside it as a hairstylist
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in a busy salon because that experience taught
7:18
me something about true crime and about people
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that I've never forgotten. The case, the trial,
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it was everywhere. It was on every television,
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every radio station, you could not get away from
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it at home, at work, in the break room. We were
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all consuming it all the time without calling
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it consumption, of course. It was just life.
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The white Bronco chase on the 405 was one of
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those moments where I couldn't believe what I
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was watching. A man, a famous, famous man who
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was beloved. might have killed two people and
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was moving at a crawl down an LA freeway with
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the whole country watching live on the news.
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I've never seen anything like it, none of us
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have. On the day of the verdict, I actually went
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into work late. I needed to watch the announcement
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of his innocence or guilt live on my own television
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before I walked into a salon full of people and
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full of all of their opinions. They had very
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strong opinions. Opposite ones of myself, depending
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on who was sitting in my chair. This is what
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I know. Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman
8:44
were dead and I believed OJ put them there. I
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felt that there was overwhelming evidence that
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made it hard to think otherwise. But I also thought
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of how horrible it was for their families who
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were sitting in that circus of a courtroom. Cameras
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like zooming in on every facial expression they
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made while the rest of the world, including myself,
9:12
debated over OJ's innocence or guilt. The verdict
9:16
of not guilty was read and my gut knew that the
9:20
entire spectacle was wrong. I still feel for
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those families today. That particular grief,
9:28
losing someone you love to violence, and then
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watching the world argue about whether it counts.
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It's something I think about whenever true crime
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asks someone of the people it leaves behind.
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And then last week, I watched a documentary on
9:45
Netflix called The Crash. It's about a 17 -year
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-old girl named Mackenzie Sharilla who drove
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her car into a brick wall at 100 miles per hour,
9:58
killing her boyfriend and his friend who were
10:00
also in the car, but she didn't die. There were
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no skid marks, no attempt to break, and a phone
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full of messages and videos that told a story
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that the defense didn't want the judge to hear.
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As I watched this documentary, I was disgusted
10:22
not only by Mackenzie's malignant narcissism,
10:26
but also by her parents' behavior. Their certainty
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that their daughter could do no wrong, despite
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so much proof of how spoiled and disturbed she
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was, made me increasingly annoyed as I watched.
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They joked about her drug use and their own,
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and spent most of the time defending how they
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raised her to be so incredibly gross and ultimately
10:52
sociopathic, in my opinion. Everyone in that
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documentary filmed everything, every minute of
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their lives, from doing drugs to throwing tantrums
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when they didn't get their way, especially Mackenzie,
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and to performing grief in front of the camera.
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It felt like a portrait of what happens when
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no one is ever required to answer for the consequences
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of their choices. It was horrifying in a way
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that went beyond the crime itself. What connects
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all of it isn't the violence or the mystery.
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It's actually the people left behind. And no
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case has stayed with me on that question more
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than Lori Valodabel. a woman who killed her own
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children flew off to Hawaii while they were buried
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in a shallow grave in her husband's backyard.
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I'm going to tell you more about that case and
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about someone who was in the room when justice
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was handed down in part two of this episode.
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But first, let's talk about the psychology, because
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I think understanding why we're drawn to these
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stories is just as important as the stories themselves.
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Let's start with the landscape because the scale
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of this thing is genuinely staggering. True crime
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is not a niche interest. It is a cultural institution.
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Serial is the podcast that many credit with igniting
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the modern true crime boom. It became the fastest
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podcast in history to reach five million downloads
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when it launched in 2014. It has since been downloaded
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more than 340 million times. Staggering. Today,
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though, there are thousands of true crime podcasts.
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Netflix, HBO, Hulu, and Prime have built entire
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content strategies around true crime documentaries.
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YouTube channels that are dedicated to cold cases
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have millions of subscribers. And then there's
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live court coverage. Think Menendez Brothers'
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re -trial or the Alex Murdoch case or even the
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Karen Reed trial drives live viewership numbers
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that rival major sporting events like the Super
13:22
Bowl. The best part is women are at the center
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of it all. Research from Edison Research found
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that Women between 18 and 49 are the most consistent
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true crime consumers across every platform. YouTube,
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Netflix, you get it. A 2010 study by psychologist
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Amanda Vacari, which we'll come back to, found
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that women not only consume more true crime than
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men, but are more emotionally engaged with it,
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most likely to finish it, and most likely to
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discuss it with others after they've seen it.
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So something is happening here that is specifically
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resonant for women. I don't think it's an accident.
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I think it's deeply and profoundly human. I'll
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explain what I mean by that. The first thing
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to understand is that there's a name for this
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pull toward dark or disturbing content. It's
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not pathological. It's called morbid curiosity,
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which I'm sure many of you have heard of. In
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case you haven't, it's one of the oldest and
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most well -documented features of the human mind.
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The psychologist Colton Scrivner defined Morbid
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curiosity as the desire to learn about threatening,
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dangerous, or disturbing aspects of the world,
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but specifically in the service of understanding
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and preparing for danger. Morbid curiosity is
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not the same as enjoying suffering. In this,
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the brain attempts to gather intelligence about
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threats that it could possibly face one day.
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Think about evolutionary history. For tens of
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thousands of years, humans lived in environments
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where the ability to recognize danger, such as
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predators, aggression, violence, members of a
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tribe, it was literally the difference between
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life and death. The brain that paid attention
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to the threat, that lingered on it, that studied
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it, survived. The brains that looked away, They
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didn't survive, they died. We are the descendants
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of the ones who looked, who paid attention. This
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means that the same mechanism that makes you
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slow down to look at an accident on the freeway,
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even though you feel guilty about it sometimes,
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it's the same ancient circuitry that draws you
16:08
toward a true crime documentary. It's not weakness.
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It's not a character flaw, even. It's an evolutionary
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inheritance firing exactly as designed. Scrivener's
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research also found that people who score higher
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in trait morbid curiosity tend to be better at
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regulating fear. They're not more anxious. They're
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often less anxious because they've preprocessed
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threat information before ever encountering a
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real version of it. True crime on some level
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is the brain doing threat training. That's a
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way to look at it. My friend Shawn is a perfect
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example of what this looks like in real life.
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She's been listening to My Favorite Murder for
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years. She even drove to Oakland to see the host
17:04
perform live. But here's the thing that tells
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you everything. When she hears a case on that
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podcast, she immediately searches for the documentary
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so she can see exactly what they're talking about
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visually. She's not consuming passively. She's
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investigating. And what she finds most compelling
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isn't the violence itself. It's the behavior
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that sits completely outside her own experience.
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Going beyond anger. acting on your darkest thoughts.
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Most of us will never go there. Shawn, like all
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of us, can't stop looking at the people who do
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or who did. Professor Gina Stahl-Haven, a very
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good friend of mine, teaches communications at
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Santa Rosa Junior College, has built an entire
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course around true crime. and told me that she
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traces her obsession with true crime to one single
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afternoon. She was in her graduate program at
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San Francisco State when she toured San Quentin
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Prison. She walked in and something shifted.
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She became obsessed, she says, with everything
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she didn't know about our criminal justice system.
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The gap between what she assumed and what she
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saw in that building was so vast that she spent
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her career trying to close it. One class, one
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student, one case at a time. That pull you feel
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toward what you don't know, toward what you're
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not supposed to see, that's morbid curiosity
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operating exactly as designed. We were built
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for this. And for women, that training serves
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a very specific purpose. So why women specifically?
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I think this is a part of the conversation that
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most true crime commentary skips over or handles
19:16
superficially. Amanda Vicarry's research found
19:21
something striking. Women are more drawn to true
19:25
crime that features female victims or cases involving
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domestic violence or intimate partner violence,
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and stories where the perpetrator was known to
19:37
the victim. In other words, women are most interested
19:41
in the crimes that are statistically most likely
19:44
to happen to them. This is a totally rational
19:48
mindset. It's not coincidental. Let's think about
19:53
this. Women are taught from childhood to be aware
19:56
of their physical vulnerability. in a way that
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men, genuinely speaking, are not. We are told
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to walk to our cars with our keys between our
20:07
fingers, not to go running after dark, or to
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share our location with a friend when meeting
20:13
someone new, to trust the uneasy feeling in our
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stomach even when we can't articulate why. We
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absorb a constant low -frequency awareness of
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danger that most men are not socialized to carry.
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True crime feeds directly into that awareness.
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It's not to frighten us further, but to educate
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us, I think. When we listen to a story about
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how a predator selected his victim, what tactics
20:48
he used to isolate them. or what the warning
20:52
signs the people around him dismissed. We're
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not wallowing, we're studying. We are gathering
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information that our nervous system has spent
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our entire lives telling us we need. Psychologists
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call this safety information hypothesis. The
21:15
research supports it. It means women who consume
21:18
true crime report higher awareness of personal
21:22
safety strategies. They're more likely to recognize
21:25
warning signs of coercive control in relationships,
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and they feel a greater sense of agency around
21:33
their own protection. My friend Shawn simply
21:38
stated that it feels like she's researching while
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watching these shows and listening to the podcasts.
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She sees it as protection because women are usually
21:48
the victims in most scenarios. She didn't need
21:51
any literature to come up with that verdict.
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She already knew it. Gina said women are probably
21:58
taking notes to figure out how to avoid getting
22:00
murdered. It was a funny comment, dark, but it
22:05
is completely true. The safety information hypothesis
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describes in clinical language, but never quite
22:12
captures emotionally. The vigilance women carry
22:16
is not paranoia. It's a reasonable response to
22:20
a world that has given us every reason to carry
22:24
it. And then there's my friend Angie. Angie's
22:29
been consuming true crimes since she was a young
22:31
adult. At first it was books on true crime, then
22:36
documentaries, then nightly videos and reels.
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She grew up in a community, along with myself,
22:44
where the crimes weren't exactly abstract. Paul
22:48
de Klaas was murdered in the next town over.
22:51
A girl from our town was murdered and her body
22:53
was dumped near a local lake, right up the street
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from me. For Angie, this genre was never entertainment
23:01
at a safe distance. It was close. When Angie
23:06
was in her 20s, she walked into a liquor store.
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Her friends were outside. and the attendant locked
23:13
the door behind her and started pushing her toward
23:16
the back of the store. Thankfully, she picked
23:20
up a bottle, looked him square in the eye, and
23:23
told him she would break every bottle in the
23:25
place and use the glass on him if he didn't open
23:28
that door immediately. He did, and she got out.
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I asked her where she thought her response came
23:38
from. She said it was a fight response, that
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she had always had that, never froze, but also
23:47
didn't consider it came from her knowledge of
23:49
true crime conception for at least a decade.
23:53
But here's what the research tells us. Her brain
23:58
didn't file a footnote. When it learns something,
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it just learns it, right? And Angie has been
24:05
learning every night for years. I then asked
24:09
her whether, before that night, she had ever thought
24:12
about what she would do if something like that
24:14
happened. Her answer was no, not before the liquor
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store. But afterward, she started questioning
24:21
herself, wondering if she misread the situation
24:24
or whether she made too much of it. Basically
24:28
whether she was wrong. She survived a real threat
24:33
using exactly the right response. But she still
24:37
asked herself if she overreacted. I then asked
24:41
her what she thought a man in the same situation
24:45
would ever, if he would ever question himself
24:48
the way she did. She immediately said no, and
24:52
then added, violence simply doesn't happen to
24:55
men at a rate, it happens to women. So that makes
24:59
me think that self -doubt isn't irrational. It's
25:03
the tax women pay for having accurate instincts
25:06
in a world that has spent a lifetime telling
25:10
them that their instincts are wrong. I remember
25:14
I saw this Oprah episode where there was a homicide
25:19
detective on it and he was talking about how
25:23
when let's say you're as a woman you're in the
25:25
elevator and a man gets in and the little hairs
25:29
on the back of your neck stand up. and everything
25:32
in you tells you, caution, caution, caution.
25:36
But because we've been told to be polite and
25:39
kind, we try to ignore that. Don't ignore it.
25:46
There's also something else happening for women
25:48
in this genre that I think is equally as important,
25:51
but it has nothing to do with self -protection.
25:53
It has to do with justice. Women are disproportionately
25:58
the victims in true crime stories, right? Historically,
26:03
they have also been disproportionately disbelieved,
26:07
dismissed, and failed by the system meant to
26:10
protect them. The true crime community, largely
26:14
composed of women, has become one of the most
26:18
powerful forces in the modern justice landscape.
26:22
The Golden State Killer was identified in 2018,
26:27
partly because of the relentless work of citizen
26:31
investigation, many of them true crime podcast
26:36
listeners. Countless cold cases have been reopened
26:41
because of the online communities that refuse
26:43
to let victims be forgotten. For women who have
26:48
spent their lives being told their fears are
26:50
rational, their instincts are wrong, and their
26:54
experiences are exaggerated, true crime offers
26:57
something rare. validation, community, and the
27:04
belief that what happened matters and that someone
27:08
is paying. So now I want to talk about the dopamine
27:12
suspense loop. Brain chemistry. There's a mechanism
27:18
at work here that explains why true crime isn't
27:21
just interesting, it's compelling in a way that
27:24
it's hard to interrupt once it starts. When we
27:29
engage in a true crime story, the brain enters
27:32
what researchers call a suspense resolution cycle.
27:37
Suspense triggers a release of cortisol, stress
27:40
hormone, which heightens your attention and focus.
27:46
The body is activated. Every detail feels significant.
27:52
You can't look away because the brain has registered
27:55
an unresolved threat. and it will not fully relax
28:00
until that threat is resolved. When the resolution
28:05
comes, maybe the arrest, the conviction, the
28:09
ID, dopamine is released. This gives you relief
28:14
and satisfaction. A small but real neurochemical
28:18
reward is given to you for staying with the discomfort
28:22
long enough to reach the end. This cycle of tension,
28:28
engagement, resolution, finally reward is the
28:33
same loop that makes narrative fiction impossible
28:36
to put down. It makes gambling compelling. It
28:42
makes any story with a strong narrative arc feel
28:47
so satisfying to complete. True crime uses it
28:51
exceptionally well because the stakes are real.
28:54
These are not fictional characters. They're real
28:57
people. And that reality raises the emotional
29:01
stakes in a way no drama can fully replicate.
29:05
This is also why true crime that ends in unsolved
29:08
cases is particularly disturbing to many listeners.
29:15
That dopamine reward never arrives. The cortisol
29:19
has nowhere to go. So you're left holding that
29:23
tension of the cortisol with no release. So the
29:27
threat is always there, but it's never ending.
29:32
Which is one reason why cold cases generate such
29:34
intense audience engagement. The brain wants
29:38
to finish what it started. Let's give this genre
29:43
its due before we examine the cost to us. I've
29:48
already mentioned safety awareness and justice
29:50
advocacy, which those are great. Phenomenal.
29:54
But let's talk about empathy at scale. True crime
29:58
at its best is an exercise in radical empathy.
30:04
It asks us to enter the experience of a victim,
30:08
maybe to imagine their fear, their confusion,
30:11
their trust that was betrayed, but to also hold
30:15
that reality long enough to actually care about
30:18
it. In a culture that often moves way too fast
30:23
and values the abstract over the personal, true
30:27
crime shows slow us down. They force us to sit
30:31
with the weight of a single human life. Research
30:36
from the University of Illinois found that people
30:39
who engage regularly with narrative nonfiction,
30:42
including true crime, show increased scores on
30:46
measures of empathy and perspective taking. The
30:51
immersion in another person's experience, even
30:54
a dark one, appears to build the emotional muscle
30:58
that allows us to connect more deeply with people
31:01
in our real lives. So that's a few points towards
31:06
the pro column of watching True Crime. True Crime
31:10
has also been one of the most powerful popular
31:13
forces driving criminal justice awareness in
31:17
the last decade. Documentaries like Making a
31:22
Murderer, The Jinx, The Central Park Five have
31:26
forced national conversations about wrongful
31:29
convictions, prosecutorial misconduct, and racial
31:34
bias in policing. Conversations that academic
31:38
papers and advocacy organizations have been trying
31:41
to start for years without traction. True crime
31:46
gave those conversations an audience of millions.
31:52
My friend Gina has built an entire college course
31:55
around exactly this idea. Her class guides students
32:00
to do a deep dive into specific cases that examine
32:06
how a victim's identity, race, class, gender,
32:11
sexual identity, how it shapes what happens to
32:15
their case. The students look at what gets investigated
32:20
and what doesn't, who gets justice and who doesn't.
32:26
And at the end of her course, each student advocates
32:29
for a specific policy change rooted in something
32:32
they discovered. One student for this semester
32:37
in her class found that in one state, I believe
32:40
it was Idaho, you can't request a change of cause
32:45
of death on a death certificate unless you do
32:48
it within two weeks of the original filing. That
32:54
means that if someone realizes a year later that
32:56
a death was actually a homicide, they can't legally
32:59
correct the record. That student is now advocating
33:04
for a policy change. That's true crime doing
33:07
exactly what it should do, turning fascination
33:10
into action. I like that. So what about processing
33:17
fear in a safe container? There is a therapeutic
33:21
function to true crime because it allows us to
33:25
experience fear or threat and a moral complexity
33:30
in a control bounded container. The danger is
33:34
real. but it's not happening to us right now.
33:39
We have the safety of the screen or the earbuds
33:41
between ourselves and the content. This creates
33:45
what psychologists call safety threat experience,
33:50
or a way of metabolizing fear and building emotional
33:54
resilience without real world risk. It's very
33:59
hard to say. For survivors of trauma in particular,
34:04
True crime can serve as a form of narrative processing,
34:09
maybe as a way of approaching experiences that
34:12
feel too close to examine directly. You could
34:16
examine them through a story that's familiar,
34:19
but not exactly identical. Full disclosure, this
34:24
is not universally true and should not replace
34:27
actual therapeutic support. But the research
34:31
is real. For some people, Engagement with true
34:35
crime is part of how they make sense of a world
34:38
that feels unsafe. My last item in the pro column
34:44
of true crime watching is community. Shawn, sitting
34:50
at a live performance of my favorite murder,
34:53
was also surrounded by people who felt exactly
34:56
the same way about it. Think about that for a
35:00
moment. A podcast about murder became a shared
35:04
experience in a room full of strangers bonded
35:08
by the same fascination. That's community. The
35:14
true crime community is one of the most active,
35:18
engaged, and connected online spaces that exist.
35:24
Maybe people who would have never met otherwise
35:26
are bonded by shared investment in justice, truth,
35:31
and the belief that victims deserve to be remembered.
35:36
For many people, especially those who feel isolated,
35:39
that community offers something real and sustaining.
35:44
That gets my vote. But now here's the part that
35:51
we don't really like to talk about, the hidden
35:53
cost of what true crime can actually take from
35:57
us. Because the same genre that builds empathy,
36:02
raises safety awareness, and creates community
36:05
can also, if we're not paying close attention,
36:10
quietly erode things we can't afford to lose.
36:16
That leads me to anxiety and hypervigilance.
36:21
As many of you know, I was born with a genetic
36:23
bone disease that has meant a lifetime of physical
36:27
vulnerability. My nervous system has always carried
36:32
a certain level of baseline alertness. It had
36:37
to. So I understand viscerally the difference
36:42
between useful vigilance and the kind of chronic
36:47
low -level fear that simply exhausts people.
36:52
If you recognize that low -level chronic fear,
36:57
that feeling that true crime feeds anxiety more
37:01
than it calms it, that's worth paying attention
37:04
to. The safety information hypothesis cuts both
37:10
ways. Yes, true crime increases safety awareness,
37:14
but for a significant portion of the audience,
37:18
especially women who are already carrying a baseline
37:21
level of threat vigilance, it can tip safety
37:25
awareness into hypervigilance, a chronic state
37:29
of nervous system activation that makes the world
37:32
fundamentally dangerous. Research has found that
37:38
heavy true crime consumers show elevated anxiety
37:42
scores, increased distrust of strangers, and
37:47
a distorted perception of the prevalence of violent
37:50
crimes. Those are the people that are in a chronic
37:55
state of nervous system activation. But here's
37:58
a fact worth sitting with. Violent crime rates
38:01
in the United States have fallen significantly
38:04
since the 1990s. The average true crime listener
38:08
perception of personal risk has not followed
38:12
that trend. Maybe it's because the content never
38:16
stops. The stories keep coming and the brain,
38:20
which cannot distinguish between a threat it
38:23
is watching and a threat it is living can stay
38:28
activated. There's also a concept in psychology
38:31
called habituation, or meaning the process by
38:36
which repeated exposure to a stimulus causes
38:39
a decreasing response to it. The first time you
38:44
hear a story of extreme violence, it usually
38:46
shocks you. The fifth time, slightly less so.
38:53
The 50th time, you may find yourself eating dinner
38:56
with a, I don't know, forensic pathologist describing
39:00
the specific gory details of a homicide and feel
39:04
nothing at all. I hope that's never me. My friend
39:10
Angie watches true crime every single night,
39:13
fully relaxed, no sleep disruption, and by her
39:17
own description, completely desensitized to the
39:20
violence. and she functions well. She feels no
39:26
chronic anxiety from it. She's a real counterpoint
39:30
to the research pattern. Not every person experiences
39:34
the genre the same way. How it lands in your
39:38
body depends in part, I guess, of what you bring
39:41
to it. But here's the distinction worth making.
39:47
There's a difference between desensitization
39:50
to the production of true crime content, such
39:53
as the music, the narration, the pacing, and
39:58
desensitization to the reality underneath it.
40:03
I want to be careful about the second kind, the
40:06
kind that makes it possible to treat a real human
40:09
tragedy as background noise. The next con of
40:17
watching true crime, listening to true crime
40:19
is, and it kind of seems obvious, is sleep disruption.
40:24
And I think we underestimate how important this
40:27
is. Study after study has found that consuming
40:32
distressing content, including true crime, in
40:36
the hour before we sleep, it elevates cortisol.
40:40
It delays sleep onset. and increases the frequency
40:45
of disturbing dreams. Because true crime is specifically
40:51
engineered to be bingeable, the one more episode
40:55
pattern that we watch with is particularly seductive
41:00
at exactly the wrong time of day. I know this,
41:05
and yet I also know my, I know this from me,
41:08
but I also know my friend Gina who is, completely
41:12
studied the psychology of this genre professionally,
41:15
watches these shows before bed specifically to
41:19
relax. And she means it. There is a real individual
41:24
variation here. But sleep deprivation doesn't
41:28
just make you tired, it impairs emotional regulation,
41:33
increases reactivity, it reduces empathy, and
41:38
it increases anxiety. So, in my opinion, the
41:43
genre you turn to partly as a way of managing
41:46
fear can, when consumed in excess at the wrong
41:50
time, I think make the fear harder to manage.
41:56
For those who engage deeply and frequently with
41:59
true crime content, there's also a real risk
42:02
of what clinicians call secondary traumatic stress.
42:07
That's the accumulation of trauma responses from
42:10
repeated exposure to other people's trauma. It's
42:15
the same phenomenon experienced by emergency
42:19
room or emergency responders, journalists who
42:24
cover disasters, and therapists who work with
42:28
survivors. Symptoms can include intrusive thoughts,
42:33
emotional numbing, difficulty sleeping, increase
42:37
startle responses, and a pervasive sense of real
42:43
dread that doesn't quite have a specific target.
42:48
If you've ever found yourself unable to stop
42:51
thinking about a case or feeling fearful in situations
42:56
that would not normally frighten you, or maybe
43:01
even carrying a sadness you can't quite trace,
43:04
Secondary traumatic stress is worth considering
43:08
if you are a avid true crime viewer. So let's
43:15
consider for just one moment an ethical question
43:18
concerning victim as content. The people at the
43:24
center of true crimes are not characters, right?
43:28
They are or were real human beings. They have
43:34
families, habits, favorite foods, inside jokes,
43:39
and fears of their own. Most of them did not
43:43
choose to become the subject of a podcast, a
43:46
docu -series, or even a Reddit thread. Their
43:52
families almost certainly did not either. There's
43:57
a growing movement among crime journalists, victim
44:02
advocates, and even some within the true crime
44:05
community that asks a question that the genre
44:10
has largely avoided. At what point does our engagement
44:15
with these stories stop serving justice and start
44:18
serving our entertainment at the expense of people
44:22
who are still living inside the worst thing that
44:25
has ever happened to them? Gina students wrestle
44:30
with this directly. They examine how victims
44:34
are framed by race, class, gender, and sexual
44:38
identity. Not just in the crime themselves, but
44:42
in the coverage. Which cases get told by the
44:46
media? How are the victims described? Were their
44:51
lives tragedy or a plotline? That critical lens
44:58
is exactly what this genre needs more of. And
45:02
it's striking that it's being taught in a public
45:05
speaking class to students who just love true
45:08
crime podcasts. So win -win, they got more than
45:12
they signed up for. Back to Angie, who consumes
45:17
more true crime than almost anyone I know. Well,
45:20
maybe she and Sean are tied. She said something
45:23
that surprised me. After everything she's watched,
45:29
she said what stays with her isn't rage at the
45:33
perpetrator, it's the sorrow that she feels for
45:36
the families, the people who love someone who
45:41
turned out to be capable of the worst thing imaginable.
45:46
That kind of empathy extended even to the people
45:49
we're not supposed to feel for. is what this
45:53
genre can produce at its best, I think, which
45:58
makes the ethical question that follows all the
46:00
more important. I'm not arguing that we shouldn't
46:04
engage. I am arguing that engagement without
46:08
reflection is a form of carelessness that this
46:13
genre or the victims and the victims' families
46:16
do not deserve. So ask yourself with honesty.
46:22
Am I engaging with this story because I truly
46:24
care about justice or because I find the horror
46:28
compelling? Both can be true simultaneously.
46:34
That's the complicated reality of being human.
46:37
But it's worth knowing which part is driving
46:41
you. So where does all this leave us? I'm not
46:46
here to tell you to stop watching. I'm not here
46:49
to make you feel guilty for something that provides
46:51
genuine comfort, community, intellectual engagement
46:55
even. What I'm here to do is what I always try
47:00
to do in this space. I want to help you to be
47:04
a little more conscious of your patterns so your
47:07
patterns are working for you instead of the other
47:10
way around. Here are questions I would encourage
47:14
you to bring to your true crime habits. One,
47:19
does this content leave me feeling more empowered
47:22
and informed, or more afraid and helpless? Both
47:27
answers are valid data. Two, am I watching at
47:32
times of day that support my sleep, my mood,
47:36
and my nervous system, or am I using it as a
47:40
way to avoid something I should be feeling? Three.
47:45
Do I find myself consuming this content even
47:49
when I don't want to? When the pull feels more
47:53
compulsive than chosen. Last one, how do I treat
47:59
the victim in this story in my own mind? As a
48:03
human being whose life mattered or as a narrative
48:07
device in a story about someone else? Those are
48:13
not gotcha questions. They are the questions
48:16
of someone who cares about both the genre and
48:19
about herself. I asked you at the very beginning
48:23
of this episode how you feel after the viewing
48:26
or listening, not during, of a true crime episode.
48:31
I hope by now you have a clearer sense of what
48:35
that feeling is telling you. And I hope you'll
48:38
decide with intention what to do with it. Because
48:42
that more than any specific habit is the work
48:45
of the original self. Choosing what you let in,
48:49
knowing why, and staying honest about what it
48:53
costs you. I'll also offer this. If you notice
48:58
that your true crime consumption is feeding anxiety
49:00
rather than calming it, consider time limiting
49:04
it. Choosing content that ends in resolution
49:09
rather than a cold case. or pairing it with something
49:14
that actively restores your nervous system afterward.
49:18
A walk, a conversation, something that reminds
49:21
your body that the immediate world around you
49:25
right now is safe. And if you find yourself carrying
49:29
something from a case that you just can't put
49:31
down, I don't know, a heaviness, a grief, a rage
49:35
that won't resolve, honor that. That is your
49:39
empathy speaking. You don't have to perform detachment
49:43
to be a thoughtful consumer. You just have to
49:47
know what you're holding and then decide intentionally
49:50
what to do with it. Next week on the original
49:55
self podcast, I'm bringing in someone to this
49:59
conversation who didn't just follow a case from
50:02
her couch. She got on a plane. booked a hotel
50:06
and walked into a courthouse in Idaho to sit
50:11
in the room where Lori Vallow Daybel was sentenced
50:14
for murdering her own children. My friend Rhonda
50:18
is going to tell us what she found when the documentary
50:22
was gone and the music stopped and then it was
50:26
just a room full of people and the unmediated
50:30
reality of what one human did to two others who
50:34
called her mom. That's part two. The witness.
50:39
True crime obsession explained. What happens
50:42
when you stop watching and walk into the room?
50:46
I'll see you next week. Like always, if you need
50:49
to speak to me or you want to check out my website,
50:52
please go to decotalifecoaching .com. Until next
50:55
time, stay curious, stay honest, and keep coming
50:58
back to yourself.