Beyond Sensationalism: Reconsidering True Crime Narratives

Balancing empathy and exploitive pitfalls on true crime's ethical tightrope

"Why do women find Ted Bundy attractive?"

"Oh," I sucked my teeth uncomfortably—I would know, because I have the recording—and said, "I don't know about that."

It was 2019, I was one of two co-hosts of a Canadian true crime podcast, and I was being interviewed by a radio DJ about the new Zac Efron movie, "Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile." It was doing quite well; our podcast—which was really just conversational regurgitations of other folks' investigative work—was beginning to take off, and I was coming to terms with the fact that I probably didn't want much to do with any of it.

When a man in a stained Korn t-shirt stares at you over a microphone, hoping you'll play along with his jokes about women writing love letters and throwing their panties to convicted serial killers, it's pretty confronting. 

Ted Bundy is wildly uninteresting to me in the same way most murderers are. There is nothing compelling about a man with a lifelong resentment of his mother, a man who felt he was owed something. I don't need to crawl inside the mind of a family annihilator to understand that he felt small and insignificant while he lost control over his finances, his family, and his wife, and that his smallness consumed so much that it grew into a good enough reason to end the lives of people so much bigger than his choices. 

So when the question was rephrased— "Why do women enjoy true crime? Why do they love these movies?" I wanted to lean into that microphone and say that I didn't care about the movie. That we don't need anymore movies about the same white male murderers who were not clever, who were not sophisticated, who were not exceptional or worthy of the space they consume. 

Instead, I said, "Anxiety. Women are told their entire lives to fear something it's impossible to prepare for. When you listen or you watch true crime, you can tell yourself the things you would've done differently. You can appease yourself and go to bed at night feeling like you understand something." 

When the interview ended, I felt disgusted, though I wasn't sure with whom—him or me. After two years of sharing people's harrowing stories among informal chatter with another comedic co-host, I probably wasn't deserving of the intellectual conversation I'd hoped for. 

Still, it wasn't exactly there and then, it was a culmination of moments and education that led to pivoting the podcast away from murder to non-violent crimes and paranormal happenings. It wasn't successful, and eventually, it ended. That was fine—good, actually. 

The world doesn't need more white women mishandling stories of people's distressing and horrifying final moments between ads for teeth whiteners and mattress toppers. 

I don't explicitly take issue with true crime as a genre of content. The monetization of death and tragedy has been happening in human society for centuries if not millennia. In Ancient Rome, to enjoy gladiator games and public executions, you paid the price of admission. As early as the late 18th century, newspapers and ballads sensationalized tragedies to attract readership and sales. With the advent of photography and film, we could capture these events to be sold as visual media—disasters, wars, accidents, sold for profit. It's a machine. It's what we do.

What I take issue with is lack of intent. In the ecosystem of true crime content, there are investigators and there are narrators. Historically, I was a narrator. I didn't do the work, instead I profited off the work of those who cared to do it. If you scroll through the top true crime podcasts of the last few years, you'll find a number with titles like "Wine and Crime" or "Drunk Women Solving Crime." My Favorite Murder, which premiered in 2016, was the original true crime comedy podcast that brought a number of these into the market. They're there, and they're successful because people enjoy them. You might be one of those people, and I have no interest in telling you what should entertain you.

But I do encourage discernment. I encourage us to ask ourselves about ethical consumption—and "no ethical consumption under capitalism" does not apply here. Some things are very clearly and simply exploitation. I don't share this to shame what you do or do not consume; I share it to give you the insight of a person who has lived the entire spectrum from consumer to creator. I share because when I received the recording of myself on the radio in 2019, I realized I was spoken to in a way I didn't like because, on my own show, I'd been speaking in a way I didn't like very much either.

In entering a space where I could tell stories, investigate, and potentially bring some of these harrowing moments into the spotlight or under a microscope again, I had to ask myself some questions. Namely, “Could it be different?” And if it was, why and how?

It is different. Immeasurably.

When you delve into a case, when you immerse yourself in it, speak to the people in a victim's—even a perpetrators—life, something transformative happens. It's not just about narrating and telling; it's about connection, understanding, and empathizing. It's not merely a tragedy to be haphazardly devoured but a story to be understood, a puzzle to be solved, and lives to be honoured.

With each piece of evidence, each conversation, there's a bond. This shift alters the way you approach the case, the way you view those involved, and the way you engage with it. It's not a matter of profit or entertainment; there's no room for superficiality or detachment; there's only the relentless pursuit of truth, guided by empathy and fuelled by the desire to have an impact.

When we, as bullshit hunters, find ourselves intersecting with other people's stories, understand that we care. That the work has been done by people who have spent late nights and early mornings obsessing and digging. There are names that we never forget, and stories that we hold and protect until they've found a home. And that home is rarely, if ever, a woman sipping wine under her Kate Spade throw blanket (though they are delightful and the best thanks-for-being-a-Bridesmaid gift I've ever received).