What Does Your True Crime Obsession Means
The Psychology behind your guilty pleasure.
The sky’s bleeding tears while I’m on the balcony finishing my second cup of turmeric tea today when a question popped up in my mind.
“Why am I so obsessed with true crime shows?”
Murder, suspense, thriller, and serial killers. Why am I so delighted with this kind of stuff? I could find myself binge-watching shows until three A.M. like 13 Reasons Why, Scream, You, Making A Murderer, How To Get Away With Murder, The Trial of Gabriel Fernandez on Netflix and other true crime documentaries online.
My heart beats faster than usual. I started thinking if it’s normal or not. I became a little paranoid so I reached for my phone and browse for answers on google. While scrolling through my phone, up and down, I can feel the inner drive coming from my nerves — it’s strong and weak at the same time. I want relief for my little paranoid head.
So what does it mean?
It Pumps Out Adrenaline
The feeling you’ll get while watching true crime shows is much like giving you the same vibe from witnessing a car accident, a typhoon blowing up the whole town, or even a building shaken by an earthquake.
Scott Bonn told Psychology Today “the actions of a serial killer may be horrible to behold but much of the public simply cannot look away due to the thrill of the spectacle”
Despite of those grisly and gruesome scenes, our eyes seem to be strongly committed not to look away because it gives us a pump of adrenaline. The emotion we get for witnessing a serial killer do his evil plan is addictive. The kind of feeling that we squeeze so hard until it gives us the satisfaction that we need.
We want our curiosity to be fed
Being curious is deemed to be a human’s innate quality or even the other species. We always wanted to know what’s beyond the lane that’s why we ended up crossing it to get a closer view of the matter or the situation.
I, personally want to be puzzled up. Anything enigmatic excites me, it teases me to go further and unlock those close doors. True crime can twist and perplex my head — it somehow makes me smarter though. The obsession I have with this genre permits me to sit on the couch and wear that “armchair detective” hat. I want every hole to be filled. I want to understand why serial killers put blood on their hands.
It grants us the power to control fear
“Serial killers allow us to experience fear and horror in a controlled environment, where the threat is exciting, but not real.” Scott Bonn on Psychology Today
Imagine yourself lying in bed at three in the morning, terrified but it doesn’t bother you. You exactly know that you have full control over the fear that the serial killer is serving right through your television screen. You can freak out calmly because the threat isn’t even real.
It helps us survive from possible crime
By watching true crime movies and documentaries, we are learning. Papers of written strategies are piled up inside our heads. It kind of leads us to the serial killer’s mind — a free pass to survive from a possible grisly act because the fear it creates pushes us to look after our safety.
Emily Mendez said, “It eases our fears about the same thing happening to us. Understanding what the victims did or didn’t do in these situations helps us feel more in control. We believe that watching these shows will help us know how to act if we are ever in these situations ourselves.”
The obsession that we have towards true crime shows is not entirely destructive. It pumps out a jolt of adrenaline, feeds our curiosity, helps us control fear calmly, and provide us strategies to survive from possible heinous acts.
True crime shows can sharpen our mind — enough to solve a problem in a rational way and enable us to convey a more professional response and attitude towards the circumstance.
