[rosewater]

I had a brief true-crime phase when I was younger. It coexisted with a love of armchair adventure stories and disasters (a lot of Krakauer books). I was an anxious college kid and in my personal experience, true crime created a dopamine loop that directly fed off that anxiety. E.g. “here is a new danger you haven’t thought of” followed by an anxiety spike followed by learning the outcome of that situation and hypothetical actions I could take to mitigate harm, thus “solving” the anxiety.

I mistook desensitization to violence as empowerment.

Since then, I’ve completely soured on true crime or entertainment that hinge on death or extensive harm. While I’m sure careful storytelling can be done, the mass-produced content is often incredibly dehumanizing. My heart goes out to all the regular people whose worst days have been discussed with fervor online as though it were a tv show. Very black mirror.