to not understand the "entertainment value" of true crime

[Nimbostratus100]

I understand the enjoyment of murder mysteries, excitement, interesting characters, mystery aspect etc.

I dont understand the "enjoyment" of "true crime" where real people have suffered and died and been bereaved. The thread about Jonbenet for example, why are people enjoying "documentaries" and feeling they can speak authoritvly about the death a poor little girl, thousands of miles away about which they in reality know nothing, but feel like they can slag of members of her family anyway?

Ive just gone onto itv player to find something to while away a few hours, and find myself being offer a whole plethera of "true crime" stuff. No thanks, what on earth is fun or relaxing being a spectator to other people's grief, pain and misery?

I just dont understand what sort of person enjoys that. I hope you will enjoy it just as much if you are ever the subject of one of these dramas.

I agree with you. I was really weirded out when I discovered some of them say “stay safe don’t get murdered!” to each other as if that’s somehow funny. Nope.

YANBU.

I like some true crime documentaries and find them interesting. But the ones I like focus on the investigation. I like to see how the police work was done and how the perpetrator was caught. I really dislike any which glamourise the crime or the perpetrator as those are so disrespectful of the victims and their family and friends.

Morbid curiosity. I understand why some people have no interest at all, but I also don't think it's weird to be fascinated by incomprehensible human behaviour.

I should have added that I avoid most which are about unsolved crimes and are more about speculation, as obviously there is no conclusion to the police work.

I think it comes under 'misery porn'. Just human nature to be fascinated with the morbid and taboo from a safe distance I think.

I only like factual ones. I don’t like it when random people try to tell me what they think about a case. If you’re not an investigator or on the jury you don’t fuckin know so shut up.

i only started feeling like that after I started working in the field though. The amount of info the public gets is about 20%

I think it is partly interest in the investigation and justice system. Partly it is a self preservation thing like many horrific disasters, people want all the details so they can reassure themselves it couldn’t happen to them.

I like true crime but only the police investigation side of it. I like the process etc. I skip through anything that's gory or horrible.

I agree , but I also don’t get the need for more and more gory dysfunctional drama series … surely they just give the more dangerous among us ideas .. Im the sort that retreats from Gogglebox when the scary music starts ! I’ve got worse since having kids - used to like murder mysteries

some of these answers do make some sense, actually

I occasionally watch videos on Facebook where people give short explanations about crimes, I am generally interested in understanding what could drive a person to do something so awful. I probably fall into the morbid curiosity side

I think being interested in nasty things happening to other people, and getting some kind of emotional reward from understanding what happened, analysing it, and discussing it, is probably either a natural survival strategy that's developed in human societies as a way to protect us from nasty things happening to us, and incentivise us to find and punish those who might harm others, or is a natural result of other psychological tendencies that developed because they enhance our social cohesion in groups or our ability to protect ourselves, or some other thing that helps humans survive and procreate and stuff.

A lot of our most popular types of entertainment seem to work by hooking into and hyperstimulating mental/psychological/social/brain/whatever mechanisms which developed because they help our survival in some way, and I don't think this is any different.

We've been interested in it for an awfully long time, way back before the 'Penny Dreadfuls'.

Ghost stories, people going to executions as a day out, stories of great battles, plane crashes generally but particularly Glenn Miller and Amelia Aerhart, pretty much any story by a sailor, folk songs (2 sisters being a stellar example - possibly one of the jollies of all the murder ballads), tales of duels, bog bodies, archaeology generally, gladiators, Princes in the Tower, jousting tales...it goes on.

I don't think it's a hugely new thing. There's just a lot more exposure to it as there is with most things these days. One used to have to seek these things out.

And some of the renewed interest in cold cases or wrongful convictions is actually doing some good See here

I love true crime. I always have. Even though I find it sad, depressing, horrifying. I can’t fully explain why but I think it’s a mixture of what other posters have said. Morbid curiosity and a fascination with how the perpetrator is so completely fucked up to commit such terrible things. I love the investigative side of it too, how police etc solve crimes. I also love watching a good comedy so I’m not completely morbid.

Yep this is it from a deep psychological point of view.

I am very interested in true crime. I wouldn’t say I enjoy it as that sounds awful but I am very interested in the psychology of both victims and murderers. I myself have been a victim of some fairly horrible crimes and actually I find reading and watching things sort of therapeutic in terms of understanding my own experiences more.

I don’t tell anyone it’s what I like to do though. Apart from dh. I google all the trial transcripts from all sorts of things, I watch and read all sort of stuff. My dd is studying criminology at university and I am often able to quote dates and specific details for stuff she’s writing about so she doesn’t have to look it up.

I will add I have autism so I guess that’s my special interest part of me.

I am a nice person though. Honest!

My husband spent nearly 30 years in law enforcement and I had a career in a related field, so the details of the investigations are really interesting to me.

Cold case files, etc. are intriguing, but I'll tune out if it's mostly speculation or if there's an obvious agenda (ie filmmaker has a pet theory and skews the documentary to only support that theory).

I think fascination with true crime is more understandable than fascination with fiction tbh. If you’re interested in the human experience, motivations, emotions and, especially, the limits of social compliance, then true crime is far more interesting than fiction (which generally reflects a well-off white, male world view even, to some extent, when written by less well-off women of colour).

I’m not keen on the sensationalized true crime docs, etc. as they’re less realistic than a lot of fiction. But I think they have the same appeal as a lot of reality TV (which I also tend not to be interested in) in that they provide the significance of being about real people but also compress everything into hyper-real/contrived scenes that leave out the difficult, more nuanced bits.

I agree with both of your comments. The police work fascinates me and I like to see the perpetrator brought to justice, hence why I don't like the unsolved cases either. I'm also very interested in forensic psychology.

I watched a documentary about Raoul Molt last night. It was fascinating watching the police close in on him, only to find him suicidal and trying to stop him killing himself. The poor policemen he shot for no reason was left blind and later killed h. I wonder what makes people behave like this, he was crazy.

Killed himself.

I'm fascinated by true crime and what motivates peip!e to commit them you don't have to like it but many people find it fascinating.

these are interesting answers. I think I do understand a bit better now

I'm interested in forensics and human nature I suppose. Some like romantic comedies. I find them irritating. Courses for horses I suppose.

I wonder if some of it is "shows you crime does not pay, the baddie gets caught" and conversely "that's why it's dangerous to go out, to be a "naughty/cheap/immoral" girl" or "well proves all men are bastards". The poor victims are almost always female, the perpetrator is always male, mostly white, mostly always romantically (often only in his mind) involved past tense with the victim.