Shownotes Transcript
If you've ever turned off the lights, drawn the curtains, locked the doors, and spent hours watching docu-series about serial killers, then this episode is for you. Today we're discussing true crime, the nonfiction genre of TV programs and podcasts that look at victims and the criminals that perpetrated crimes against them. There's no shortage of examples of TV shows in the genre. Here are some examples.
So why are these shows so popular and what effects can they have on our brains and our behavior? We're gonna find out.
Now, please note that this episode will discuss violence, assault, and murder. I'm William Lee Adams, and this is What in the World? from the BBC World Service.
Here to tell us more about the topic is Jackie Wakefield from the BBC's Global Disinformation Unit. Jackie, hi. Hi. So, Jackie, let's zoom out for a minute. What do we mean when we say true crime? So true crime is any content that follows the real aspects of any crime case, whether that be...
a murder, a kidnapping, a serial killer, even something like shoplifting would be true crime. So it's something that looks at the legal aspects, putting together the journalistic aspects of the case and looking at who did it. And why do you think they're so popular? I think there's so many reasons, right? I think one is that there's this discussion aspect to it. We can chat about it. You can hypothesise. It means that you kind of build...
a bit of involvement with the story with mates or with people online. And then I think there's also this idea of getting justice that I think people are really fascinated by this idea of
Why did someone do something and can we hold them to account for that? I've always been obsessed with this idea that I'm going to be kidnapped. I think it was back when I was a kid and the teachers were like, if you leave the playground, a spooky man in a slow-moving car will open the door and snatch you. So I sort of watch these shows to find out tips about what I can do if I'm in one of these situations. And I want to give you an example. There's a show called Surviving Evil.
And in one episode, a woman's kidnapped and she's beaten and she's put in a trash bin upside down. Now, at the end of the episode, she survives evil. And she says that her great lesson was that she needed to flip herself over, a.k.a. knock the trash bin over so that she wouldn't die, so that she would remain conscious. Now, do you ever draw lessons, life lessons like that from these shows? I don't know about you, but I know when I'm scrolling on my own TikTok, I always watch...
Those videos where it's like, this is how to escape from a car boot if you're stuck in there. You punch through the light glass and then you wave. And I think that explains why true crime is so popular with women. Because women are kind of told about these, you know, you're not going to be safe at night, not going to be safe on the streets. And I think a lot of women justify loving true crime so much because...
It kind of gives you step to step of what not to do. Separately to that, I think there's something very formulaic to these programs that we really enjoy. Like, I mean, I really enjoy in particular. It's that idea of, you know, slowly picking through every detail, finding out every aspect about a case and then,
sometimes wrapping it up in the end with an answer that we so rarely get in real life. Absolutely. There's some gratification there. Now, I want to pause for a moment and bring in Dr. Julia Shaw. She is a psychologist here in London, and she hosts the BBC true crime podcast, Bad People. We had a conversation earlier about some of the reasons people like the true crime genre. I think that true crime fans get a bit of a bad reputation, as in there's this idea that true crime is this dogma
dark, almost dirty little secret that people have and that they shouldn't enjoy watching shows about things like murder. But I think what's actually going on is a profound psychological interest in why people do bad things. So if you ask people why they enjoy it, which I actually did for the podcast, bad people, um,
One of the main things that they said is that they wanted to learn about real issues. It's not this shallow, vapid pastime that true crime is often presented as. I think instead it's actually people who want to really deal with the things that are most important in society. I also think
that, at least based on our listeners, that people really want to understand their own dark thoughts. There's been studies which have shown that people have in their lives at some point fantasized about killing somebody. And I don't mean that in a sort of really detailed way. I mean more that someone is really bugging you and you have this fleeting thought perhaps of what would happen if
And, of course, the benefit of that is that you're sort of going through this thought experiment and hopefully it should help you to make a decision not to do that because you're thinking about the negative consequences that also follow. But those dark impulses that we all have, those thoughts, I think people really want to understand them. And when you see the manifestation of those thoughts in the most extreme form in crime, you can deal with them, but in a more positive,
I don't know, in a more, in an easier way than just trying to introspect. So Jackie, we talked about the why, why people like these programs, but when did they become so popular? True crime has been popular. There were, you know, articles in the 18th century that was about true crime. In the 80s and 90s, there were lots of serial killer true crime documentaries.
But it really exploded on the scene with Serial, which followed the case of Adnan Syed. This was where the idea of true crime really entered the mainstream. This podcast went, I'm not sure if you've heard of it, but it went crazy.
crazy and it really had real world implications as well. Adnan Syed, who was accused of the murder of Hayman Lee, was actually just released after the podcast came out due to evidence that came out within the podcast. And I think it really captured people because there was this weekly format, people were discussing it in forums and it just took on a life of its own. And from there, the genre has been going bonkers ever since. Could you tell us about the role the internet plays
in sort of hyping these shows and creating communities around them? Ever since the internet started, it's played a bit of a role in these cases. So in 1999, there was a website called Web Sleuths, where people would log on and discuss different cases. Of course, this was pretty small scale. It was before social media. It was just a few people who were very, very into this world. Then you have Reddit, where people were discussing it on forums. It got a little bit
bigger. And it wasn't until the advent of algorithmic social media, so, you know, TikTok, Instagram and others where it was really hard to avoid. And you started getting people really building upon each other to create a frenzy. And we've really seen it affect
real life cases. So one example is the Gabby Petito case. So Gabby Petito was a young woman. She was 22. She was on a van trip with her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie, and she went missing and it came out that
her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie, had committed the murder. He then took his own life. So many TikTok creators jumping on that trend and making videos after videos. These social media sleuths were throwing out locations that Gabby had never been to. But then you have some actually helping. So through social media, there was a couple that was also on a van trip similar to Gabby Petito. And
And they actually had camera footage of the van a few days before she went missing. So it's a double-edged sword. It can sometimes be...
positive, but more often than not, it can be negative, particularly on the victim side of things. I think it's very easy to forget when you're watching a TV show or listening to a podcast that these are real people and you forget that their family's still around. They are often hearing what people are saying about them. They're hearing these theories and that's where treating it as entertainment can get
really tough and a lot of true crime content can kind of teeter into that space where it can be disrespectful and not really taking the case seriously. That's one example of the negative consequences of this genre. Let's hear more from Dr. Julia Shaw now. I asked her if the anxiety and fear that some people experience when watching or listening to these shows persists even after they turn them off.
It can. It can for sure. And that's also where it's our role as people who create this content, ideally, to educate people on the fact that these are incredibly rare circumstances. These are incredibly rare crimes. And the idea that you are going to be the victim of murder is incredible.
I mean, you are just more likely to die of basically anything else. We need to not overblow this idea that this is something that's going to happen to everyone. And actually the crime that I'm most worried about, the fear mongering of, that I also see well-meaning people do,
is the fear of sexual assault of women. And I think if you constantly hear narratives and true cases of people, of women getting sexually assaulted, I think the problem is that it can make women like myself feel like I shouldn't go outside. And it really limits our psychological freedom of movement. And we encourage people to take breaks from stressful activities like exercise, work even,
And you as a true crime creator, in a way, would you encourage people to take breaks from this type of content? This is a question I get asked for myself as well, as a criminal psychologist who deals with all these horrible cases. How do you deal with it? And how are you not constantly suffering from what's called vicarious trauma, which is when you experience somebody else's trauma and basically through empathy, carry yourself as well and have your own flashbacks.
And the answer is sometimes I do have flashbacks. And I think with true crime shows, that is a possibility, especially with the frontline cameras that we now have. We're now getting footage, like body-worn camera footage and HD camera footage from Nest cams. And so that is...
Where I think we do need to be careful, both in how things are cut and as consumers of true crime, yeah, to take breaks, especially if things are intense. And, I don't know, watch some puppies. Jackie, let's pivot back to the positives of true crime. Are there any examples where these shows have led to solutions or helped investigators? Yeah, so there's a lot of cases where these podcasts really reinvigorate interest in cold cases and
end in a conclusion, an end in a sentencing. So for example, there's this podcast in Australia that looked at a cold case of a woman who had been killed and
this podcast was able to piece together evidence around the case and it completely went viral, at least in Australia. I think it was pretty global as well. And it turned out that the husband at the time had murdered the wife and the podcast was what helped piece together evidence, reinvigorate interest, which resulted in a court case and then a sentencing. Jackie, thanks so much for joining us. Thanks so much for having me.
That's all for today. Thanks for listening to another episode of What in the World from the BBC World Service. I'm William Lee Adams. If you're interested in more episodes about television, check out our back catalogue. We've got episodes like How Has Reality TV Changed? and Marvel Mishaps, Are We Sick of Superheroes? We'll see you again soon.