English Version | Confessions of an addict

True crime is more than entertainment - it is music to our ears. On public transport, in the kitchen, in the shower, everywhere is a place to see, or hear, the story of a bloody murder.

Photography by Stella Morais
Photography by Stella Morais

It's hard to say when it started. In fact, I hardly remember the times before true crime, as if my life only began when I surrendered to this genre. And I know I'm not the only one with this macabre obsession, because the Internet is full of content based on true violent crime cases: Netflix releases new documentaries practically every month, there are thousands (if not millions) of youtubers who do their own analysis while doing a glamorous makeup look, and the crime category on Apple Podcasts has endless episodes about the most sinister murders. Something has happened in the course of modern entertainment that has brought us to this place where crime is a central theme in virtually every form of content we consume - and my research leads me to point the finger at Truman Capote. Perhaps it was thanks to the American author's great work, In Cold Blood (1966), that analyses of violent crime became popular. In the book, based on real events, Capote ventured to tell, with all the details we are entitled to, the story of the bloody murder of the four members of the Clutter family, found lifeless in their home in Holcomb (Kansas) in November 1959. The writer's fixation with the murder led him to travel to the small town where it all happened to collect testimonies from neighbors, investigators… and the killers themselves, who became famous thanks to Capote. The work, considered by critics as a pioneer of the true crime genre, would eventually provoke the beginning of a widespread obsession with murder and bizarre mysteries. A fixation that, in recent decades, has verged on exaggeration.

As hard as it is to understand that there are people who delight (or rather, calm) to hear detailed stories of how someone was kidnapped, tortured and murdered, true crime is no longer a niche thing - the millions of subscribers and views say so. Because it's true: there is something strangely calming about putting on your headphones and making your way home on autopilot, while directing your attention to follow the scary narrative that someone tells you in your ears. I assume here that I am part of this majority that has dozens of episodes on Spotify about the most varied subjects. And it's not necessarily perverse - in one of these recordings, I heard Julia Shaw, a criminal psychologist, explain that there are more than logical reasons that justify this taste. First of all, the curiosity for the unknown. What happens after death? How were the pyramids in Egypt built? Who was responsible for the disappearance of Madeleine McCann? These are some of the questions that haunt us for their unanswerability, but that doesn't stop us from doing intensive research befitting a police investigation to try to get to the bottom of it - because we need to know. Assuming a fascination with the unknown, the criminal psychologist explains that, even so, there is something familiar aggressiveness with which certain crimes are perpetrated. As Shaw says in the BBC CrowdScience podcast, what differentiates a conventional person (i.e. one without homicidal tendencies) from someone who commits murders is not necessarily a psychopathy from which we can from which we can easily distance ourselves. Apart from the complex pathologies that characterize serial killers - professional, cold-hearted and meticulous - there are many cases in which the perpetrators report a snap, a moment when they feel they have lost control. In this sense, the former psychologist explains that we all have a side of ourselves that is darker that we control by putting up barriers to these "darker" impulses so that we can never access them. Most people see this mechanism as a protection for themselves and for others, but there are those who go beyond the blockade and let themselves be carried away by the animalistic impulse. And we, on this side, don't stop wondering, "What drives someone to cross the barrier? Could it ever happen to me?" More than the morbid curiosity of what happens inside the mind of someone who kills another person, true crime allows us to feel the ecstasy and the adrenaline without having to risk our lives: we put on the headphones, select the latest episode of our favorite podcast, and let ourselves be immersed in the story, told softly with an ambient music that transports us to the scene of the action.

In audio or video format, aggressive crime stories allow us to put ourselves in the victim's shoes and feel all the fear without having to risk being violently assaulted and killed. Of the endless reasons why we are obsessed with true crime, we cannot help but mention one of the most bizarre: Schadenfreude. The German term describes the feeling of joy or pleasure in the face of tercial misfortune - sadistic, yes, but accuse yourself who doesn't have mad fun watching compilations of funny falls. It is definitely more common for us to feel this way about less serious misfortunes, but there is a certain logic to Schadenfreude when it comes to true crime, if we think that, in relation to the other (who came out of the story raped and murdered), we couldn't feel safer. Julia Shaw also mentions that hearing the details of how a killer developed a thorough and (almost) infallible method can be music to our ears, in the (strange) sense that it is "a feat of wonder." Jack the Ripper killed at least five women between August and November 1888, and even though the means of investigation were not as refined as those we have access to today, few suspect the identity of the killer. The same happened with Zodiac, the criminal who not only escaped justice, but also rubbed it in the face of the authorities in letters he wrote to the American press. Not just anyone has the organization that allows them to commit multiple murders and not get caught - and we want to know precisely how they do it, either just to kill curiosity (pun fully intended) or for research purposes. It’s not that we are trying to figure out how to be a successful murderer, but because knowing some methods and tricks used by criminals, we can prevent ourselves for future situations. In fact, there are numerous studies that prove that many women who listen to or watch content about true crime cases do so to learn how to identify a threat.

The question of how billions of content creators dedicated to true crime came about is easily answered: they are simply responding to a demand that doesn't seem to diminish. The format in which people decide to share their stories seems to have more to do with cultural trends. Ten years ago, when YouTube was a growing platform, some of the channels that still have millions of subscribers, such as Buzzfeed Unsolved, which continues to share its analyses of true crime cases, began to appear. The evolution to audio began to take place in the middle of the last decade, when the creators themselves realized that many of their subscribers had little willingness or interest in the visuals - the juice of the was in the sound. Bailey Sarian was one of the youtubers to understand the change in consumption: in her videos, the creator uses the power of the word to tell all the details of a crime while doing a makeup look. With the mobile phone set down anywhere, you don't even have to look at the screen to follow the story - and so began the rise of podcasts. Of course, the format existed before, but the popularity, especially of the crime genre, had a big boom in 2014. Serial was the podcast that marked the change: Sarah Koenig is the journalist hosting the program, which debuted with a 13-episode season devoted entirely to the murder of Hae Min Lee. The meticulous research was initially done just for fun, but ended up having a monumental "real" impact: in addition to being crucial in popularizing podcasts, Koenig's research led to the case being reopened. When Hae Min Lee was found dead in 1999, the only suspect considered was her ex-boyfriend, Adnan Syed, who was eventually sentenced to life in prison. In her analysis, the journalist found that there was no forensic evidence against Syed and that what led to his conviction was the confession of a colleague of the young man, who claimed to have been contacted to help hide Min Lee's body - but his testimony changed depending on the interviews he conducted and did not match phone records. The doubts Koening raised 15 years after the trial led to the case being reopened, and on September 19, 2022, Adnan Syed was released from prison.

Serial is not the only case of podcasts outwitting the law enforcement authorities themselves to get to the bottom of the matter. Chris Lambert's show, Your Own Backyard, is devoted solely to the case of Kristin Smart: in May 1996, the 19-year-old disappeared after a party on her college campus. Six years later, Smart was officially declared dead, and the investigation eventually ended with no suspects - until Lambert shared his highly detailed opinion in 2019. According to the authorities, it was thanks to Your Own Backyard that the case made the most progress, and it was also as a result of his action that new (and important) testimonies emerged. Not only was the main suspect found, Paul Flores, but he is currently in court, accused of having taken Kristin to his house after the party, where he allegedly raped and killed her - macabre, yes, but we can't resist, we have to know all the details of how he did it. We refuse to give up the hundreds of episodes of Casefile, Dateline and Unsolved Mysteries, the two-hour walks taken solely for the purpose of listening to the long theories about who killed JonBenet Ramsey or where Xavier Dupont de Ligonès fled to after he allegedly murdered his entire family. The temptation is impossible to bear, it is stronger than we are. But at least we are able to become aware and take up the addiction. After all, that's the first step, isn't it? 

Translated from the original on The Butterfly Effect issue from Vogue Portugal, published October 2022.Full story and credits on the print issue.