June 3, 2025 • 47 mins
Why are we so obsessed with the dark side of life? From true crime and horror movies to disaster documentaries and haunted house tours, morbid curiosity is everywhere - but what does it actually say about us? In today’s episode, we explore the psychology of morbid curiosity - why we’re drawn to frightening, disturbing, and even grotesque content, and how this strange pull might be more adaptive than we think.
We discuss:
- What morbid curiosity really is, and how it shows up in daily life
- The four types of morbid curiosity (and which ones you might lean toward)
- How personality traits like openness and sensation seeking shape our preferences
- Why some people find comfort in horror, and others find control in true crime
- The evolutionary and neurological roots of this phenomenon
- How morbid curiosity can turn maladaptive (and where the line is)
Whether you're deep into Reddit rabbit holes or just wondering why you can't look away from crime scene documentaries, this episode is for you. We explore the fascinating science behind fear, survival, and our cultural obsession with darkness - and why it might say more about our strength than our weakness.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
the podcast where we talk through some of the big
life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
mean for our psychology.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to
the podcast. New listeners, old listeners. Wherever you are in
the world, it is so great to have you here
back for another episode as we of course break down
the psychology of our twenties. So, as you guys know,
each week on the podcast, we basically just try and
(00:43):
get a little bit more sense of this decade that
we are living through. From untangling, you know, attachment style dating,
dream jobs, figuring out quarter life crises, all of those things.
It's all part of the beautiful, messy business of growing up.
But some times a topic takes my fancy that is
(01:03):
not unique to our twenties, but yet is so fascinating
and has so much psychology behind it that I cannot
help but do it. And today is one of those topics.
We are heading into slightly murkier waters today and we're
talking about true crime. Why we love true crime, or
(01:23):
this idea of morbid curiosity true crime podcasts, True crime books,
true crime, movies and shows. They are one of the
leading sources of entertainment. They are a billion dollar industry.
People love to be exposed to fear and to tragedy
(01:45):
and to horror and gore. And it seems so counterintuitive.
Why as humans, as a species that spends so much
time pursuing safety and comfort and love, do we have
this kind of darker side of us that is so
curious about things that are so tragic and so awful.
(02:06):
It turns out that liking true crime doesn't mean that
anything is wrong with you. In fact, liking true crime
is actually quite adaptive. It helps us understand fear, it
helps us process danger, it helps us make more sense
of a very unpredictable and chaotic world, and on a
(02:27):
psychological level, it actually may even provide a some kind
of anxiety relief, but be a sense of control that
is otherwise really hard to obtain. It seems very strange
I know that something so scary could actually provide us
with so many benefits and actually leave us feeling positive,
(02:51):
slash entertained, slash relieved. But when you look into the
psychology and even the neuroscience of it, it's incredibly fascinating.
True crime also, I think is a very nuanced moral,
moral domain, moral area. There's so much humanity in how
we handle true crime content, and I think that a
(03:15):
lot of us would understand this feeling of becoming quite
desensitized to it and feeling like these days you can
hear about the worst day of someone's life on TikTok,
or you can tune into my favorite murder and listen
to the story of someone being brutally killed, and that's
(03:36):
just a normal thing. There's so much true crime content
out there. We have to be careful that we continue
to have our humanity intact as we consume it, and
that we continue to understand that these are real people
with real families, with real emotions and real pain who
have been through this, and their stories are not just
for us to listen to or consume on a long
(03:58):
car ride. There's also this other era of this, whereby
when we consume too much, we can actually feel like
the world becomes heavier, because all we are thinking about
and listening to and the information we're giving our brain
is that the world is big and scary. So how
do we know when we have consumed too much true
crime content? How do we know when to stop? And
(04:20):
how do we know that this doesn't make us a
bad person even if you feel very drawn to gruesome,
awful things. These are all the questions, and there's going
to be a lot more questions that we're going to
answer today. But I really want to dive into this
topic of the psychology of morbid curiosity, where the urge
comes from to know about crime, how it works, when
(04:40):
does it peak, and how does it serve us versus
emotionally drain us. This is going to be a very
fascinating topic, a little bit unsettling for sure, but also
I would say kind of comforting and if nothing else,
is very very interesting. So without further ado, let's talk
about psychology behind why we like true crime. Let's start,
(05:08):
as we always do, with the fundamentals, with the basics.
What is morbid curiosity because it is a major precursor
to enjoying true crime and horror content. At its core,
morbid curiosity is basically the tendency to seek out information
or experiences related to dangerous, disturbing, dark, or threatening topics.
(05:33):
And that could mean death, that could mean violence, that
could mean illness, supernatural threats, or even bodily harm. Basically,
all the things that scare us and fascinate us in
equal measure we feel drawn to. And it sounds really counterintuitive, right,
(05:54):
Why would we voluntarily engage with things that scare us,
especially when so much of our ordinary life is avoiding fear.
Researchers actually say that we are driven to be curious
about morbid events because as humans, we have this inbuilt
need to explore novel stimulating things that excite us in
some way. And if you're thinking excited might not be
(06:17):
the right word here, it is worth noting that feeling
excited isn't just something that happens in response to positive experiences.
Excitement actually is just activation of extreme interest, so it
can be in response to negative and alarming events as
well as cheerful or positive ones. So to understand this further,
(06:40):
you need to know this name, doctor Colton Shgrivner. He
is a leading researcher at Arizona State University and he
primarily focuses on true crime, fascination and the psychology behind it.
He actually developed something very useful in this conversation called
the more Curiosity scale. So he wanted to know, Okay,
(07:04):
some people like this kind of dark content, some people
like this. What are the different categories of dark horror
crime content that people like and what kind of person
feels drawn to each of them? So he broke it
down into four main categories. Dangerous animals, shark attacks, poisonous snakes,
(07:24):
that kind of thing. People who like violent interpersonal events,
so crime, murder, assault, criminal psychology, true crime series fans,
that's the one they that's the category they fall into. Next,
supernatural threats, so people who like ghosts, demons, the occult,
paranormal activity films, those kind of things. And finally, bodily violations,
(07:47):
so autopsies, medical anomalies, graphic injuries, car crashes. Not everyone's
more bid curiosity is the same. I personally hate supernatural movies.
I will not watch one, but I love podcasts and
documentaries about animal attacks, specifically this one called Tooth and
(08:10):
Clat like it has been the top of my Spotify
wrapped every single year. I'm fascinated by it. You, on
the other hand, might get super creeped out by that,
and I'm just not even interested in at all. But
really love medical shows or really love, you know, really
graphic pimple popping videos. The way that we experience excitement
(08:33):
and thrill from different morbid events is going to differ
between each of us, and some people might not even
have it at all. Different types of morbid curiosity, though,
those different categories seem to correlate with different psychological traits.
So people hire in openness to experience. For example, they
(08:54):
are more likely to enjoy complex, thought provoking forms of
true crime documentaries or dark philosophical fiction. In this way,
I think it's because they have a real interest in
what drives humans to do certain things. There's a real
intellectual curiosity there. But people with different personalities, particularly people
who are quite kinesthetic and really understand and learn through
(09:19):
their bodies and through movement, they tend to be more
fascinated by bodily violations. So it is actually quite individual.
People who are really like sensation seeking and risk takers,
they are more likely to enjoy graphic horror, intense core,
very thrill heavy mysteries. You can see that it really
(09:41):
comes back to our individual preferences and our character. But
back to that main question why. It turns out that
personality has a lot to do with what kind of
morbid content you like, but also why you like it. So,
linking back to that researcher we talked about before, he
found that there are certain things that people who like
morbid content have in common. So, yes, they might be
(10:05):
driven to different forms of darkness, but they often rate
or rank quite high in terms of rebellious nonconformity. So
they like to push boundaries, they like to challenge norms.
They're also often quite curious, very socially curious, very intellectually curious,
(10:26):
and so they are attracted to things that aren't typically discussed,
that might be a little bit taboo, that also are
very fascinating because of how complex they are. You know,
this idea of why to humans hurt other humans, it's
not something that has a simple answer. Every case is
(10:46):
going to be different. Every person's motivations are going to
be influenced by different experiences in different things, and so
people who are quite socially curious see the minds of
these individuals as a challenge. Another really compelling explanation comes
from evolutionary psychology. So from an evolutionary perspective, morbid curiosity
(11:10):
likely developed as a way to help us navigate and
survive in a very dangerous world. You've got to remember
these things exist for a reason. You know, if morbid
curiosity didn't have a purpose, it wouldn't be as common
as it is. But in early human history, being able
to learn from threats without having to directly experience them
(11:30):
would have been incredibly beneficial. You know, if you watched
someone else eat a poisonous bearer, you knew to avoid it.
If you heard a story about a deadly predator lurking nearby,
you knew to steer clear of that area. Our ancestors
would simulate those threats in their minds as a way
to develop survival strategies. It's basically a primitive version of
(11:53):
higher stakes observational learning. So nowadays we do that through
consuming certain forms of entertainment, and this is where the
concept of threat simulation comes in. Morbid curiosity serves as
a kind of threat learning system. Were drawn to frightening
and graphic content because on a psychological level, our brain
(12:13):
wants to gather information about how to survive, So that
would have been really adaptive previously for helping us to
understand threats from a safe distance. Nowadays, we really seek
out knowledge and danger about the current human condition, not
because we enjoy suffering, but because we want to understand
it more so that we are more prepared, and that
(12:36):
kind of feels comforting and provides a little bit of relief.
There is some further value to consuming this content as well,
and it was really revealed during COVID. During the pandemic,
these researchers were looking at who was doing better, who
was coping with what was a very scary time, who
(12:58):
was coping with all the loss and also all the
uncertainty and all the fear, And they found that it
was people who scored higher on the morbid curiosity scale.
So they liked horror, they liked true crime, who were
more psychologically resilient. Why was this the case, Well, because
they had already rehearsed their approach to fear and danger.
(13:21):
They were familiar with crisis narratives in that sense, their
curiosity about these things beforehand had almost mentally prepared them
for the unknown, like they had most likely simulated and
been exposed to crises over and over again in their mind,
and so that gave them a psychological toolkit to draw
from when real fear kind of arrived, kind of being
(13:43):
inoculated against it in a way, you know, you get
a vaccine, and the reason a vaccine works is because
it exposes you to a small amount of the virus
that is not harmful, and then you're protected when you
do encounter it. These individuals had been inoculating themselves with
scary content building up like this. Almost most immunity, there's
kind of a threat learning. It's not that something is
(14:06):
wrong with you. It's actually very adaptive. This is what
this is saying. It's an emotional armor for a very
chaotic world. And there's also some fascinating neuroscience behind this
as well. If you dip into the brain of someone
who is consuming let's say a serial killer podcast or
watching criminal minds, what you will see is several regions
(14:28):
lighting up. The first one is the amigta, which is
our brain's fear center. It becomes active of course, as
part of the brain becomes active because it's responsible for
detecting threats and initiating, you know, your fight or flight response.
But we also see the activation of this part of
the brain called the insular, and this is a region
(14:49):
involved in processing empathy, so it can also be quite
a human experience. But the fascinating part that they also
would say is that although these brain regions were lighting up.
In general, other parts of the brain were also quite active,
so we actually felt quite safe. These individuals had this
(15:12):
danger response, but it wasn't overriding other responses in their brain.
It was almost borrowing the intensity of these experiences that
they were watching on screen or that they were listening
to for entertainment, and almost as like a training ritual
for our brain. Right It's like you go to the
gym to stretch a muscle. They were watching this true
(15:33):
crime content and it was like their brain was practicing
its fear response whilst also not shutting down the rest
of the body. It's a gym for our emotions. And
a twenty thirteen study at the University of Amsterdam it
did find that horror movies true crime, they do trigger arousal.
They do get our heart rate going, they make us tense,
(15:56):
there's faster breathing. But this alarm reaction is actually mimicking
mimicking actual danger. In some part of our brain knows
that we're okay, it knows that we're physically safe. You'll
still get the adrenaline, you'll still get the thrill. But
there was also this weird sense of satisfaction walking away,
(16:17):
feeling that you have conquered the fear, and that is
what kept people coming back to this form of content.
It was giving us a safe way to experience unsafe things,
tricking us into thinking that we've done something brave. But
these people never actually left the room, they never actually
went outdoors. There's actually been some research into this being
(16:40):
quite good for people with anxiety, you know, morbid curiosity
offers this strange but meaningful form of comfort. And some
of you even reached out to me and said this.
When I posted that I was going to do this episode,
one of you DMed me and said, I have such
intense anxiety, but I love true crime content. I love
(17:02):
learning about danger because it makes it feel knowable. It
like shrinks its power, and you know, that's actually quite
a revealing thing, right. It's the sense that if you
understand the monster, maybe you can survive it. If you've
read the story, you can rewrite the ending. And so
(17:24):
watching true crime almost in a way, is providing people
with a sense of pseudo control that in a very
chaotic world we typically don't actually get. Let's talk about
how gender plays into this as well, because something that
may or may not surprise you, is that women consume
true crime content at a much higher frequency than men.
(17:46):
We're all over it. In some cases. It's been estimated
that around eighty percent of the audience for true crime
is women. I know personally, as a woman, I constantly
hear about gender based crimes, and I'm constantly thinking about
my safety in a way that I know my boyfriend
and my male friends and my dad and my cousins
do not. And I don't know about some of you,
(18:08):
but I find myself consuming a lot of true crime
content where the victims are women. Obviously because crimes against
women are so high and the rates are so much higher,
but also because when I hear stories about women, I
immediately pay attention and I feel instinctively more drawn in.
And that's not a coincidence. Research has really found and
(18:29):
shown time and time again. Men are really interested in supernatural,
horror and aggressive content. Women are drawn to true crime,
serial killers and murder because their interest is stemming not
just from curiosity, but also from kind of a survival
(18:50):
learning mechanism place. Our interest in true crime is really
stemming from the fact that these narratives speak to real
gender base threats. That women are more statistically likely to face,
and in this way, morbid curiosity often reflects real world hypervigilance.
For women, stories about danger can feel really personal, and
(19:13):
so we want to understand what happened. We want to
understand how it happened. We want to know what the
signs were in hindsight, because consciously or not, we are
trying to protect ourselves. True crime, yes, on the surface,
looks like entertainment. It's actually more about risk assessment. It's
not just why did he do it? It's how can
(19:33):
I avoid this happening to me again, linking in the
fact that true crime might be a proxy for a
greater sense of control and for a greater sense of preparedness.
I guess, of course, there is also a fine line
between curiosity, preparedness, and exploitation. You know, when it is
(19:59):
done respectfully and when true crime is considerate of any
victims involved, these experiences can offer really powerful opportunities for
reflection and education. The tricky part is when they begin
to become sensationalized or commercialized. We need to become cautious
of when the suffering of real people becomes entertainment, because
(20:20):
when this happens we risk turning empathy into a real spectacle.
Had an amazing woman on the podcast a few years
back talk about navigating extreme trauma, and her name was Amy,
and her mother was really tragically murdered by her brother,
and then that same brother tried to organize for her
to be murdered by fellow inmates who were about to
(20:42):
get out whilst he was still in prison. And that
was her real life, that was her daily experience of
fear and grief and loss. And she was so open
in sharing about what true crime content meant to her
and how there is a very fine line between talking
about true crime for the purposes of awareness, solving cold cases,
and then just for entertainment. And what she said to
(21:05):
me was, there are a couple ways to really tell
whether what you're consuming is good or bad. Firstly, does
the podcast or show talk about the families? Does it
contain their permission to talk about the case. Do they
bring the family on, do they victim blame or do
they solely blame the perpetrator, the person who was responsible.
(21:28):
Do they bring attention to cold cases or just to
cases where there's been a big trial or there's been
some big, dreary finding or you know, a big, splashy
front page news cover. Do they donate to gendered violence charities?
Yes or no? Do they make jokes about the experiences
(21:51):
or are they really just focused on the facts and
the truth. These are important questions to ask if you
want to keep listening, if you want to keep watching,
if you want to keep a true crime in a
way that preserves your humanity, because I don't think it's
bad to want to know it's actually profoundly human, as
we've discussed, but also can only be profoundly human if
(22:11):
it contains compassion and empathy. Because if you're just consuming
to be like, oh I hope this doesn't happen to me,
or oh wow, that's interesting and I'm bored and I
need a thrill, I don't think that's a kind way
to treat what is someone else's life and someone else's death. Perhaps, Okay,
we are going to take a short break, but when
we return, we're going to explore actually why our morbid
(22:34):
curiosity typically peaks in our twenties, and also how you
can find some balance with the amount of content out there.
So stay with us. So let's sum in on why
true crime and horror consumption actually peaks in our twenties,
(22:54):
according to research. I have been thinking about this all
week because I had no idea that this was the case,
and still until I started to really research this episode,
and then I found all these fascinating statistics that basically
said that the biggest audience for true crime is yes,
women of all ages, but people in their twenties makeup
(23:16):
probably like one of the second biggest groups. I think
the reason why in this decade we are so drawn
to this kind of stuff is because there is a
lot of instability during this period. There are a lot
of existential questions. There's new independence. For many of us.
It's the first time we truly become aware of our
(23:37):
own mortality, and not in an abstract sense, but in
a real, tangible way. This is the decade of a
lot of firsts and a lot of the first time.
We face a lot of existential questions. We move out,
we lose loved ones, we see injustice upclose. We gain independence,
but also anxiety and suddenly the idea of death or
(23:57):
danger or grief. It isn't just theory radical, it's real.
And with all of that comes the question, what does
it really mean to just face the worst and am
I going to be capable when it happens? Morbid curiosity
becomes a way to confront these questions without having to
live them. You know, by watching, listening, reading, imagining, we
(24:20):
test out different scenarios. You know, what if I was
in that situation? How would I react, how would I survive?
How would I feel? There's also a deep need in
our twenties to figure out how the world works, and
morbid curiosity is part of that. It helps us learn
about the worst case scenarios so that maybe we can
(24:42):
prevent them or at least understand them. And it's kind
of a bonding experience. There is a social side to
this as well, you know, sharing scary stories, true crime, obsessions,
late night TikTok, rabbit holes. It can be such a
bonding experience and there is the kind of vulnerability in
admitting that we're scared or fascinated by this dark stuff
(25:05):
and then hearing someone else say, yeah, I also am
fascinated by that, and let's talk about it together. You know,
It's just something that bonds people and that fascinates us,
and that I think brings us together as this human
species of like, wow, do you feel this complex emotion.
I do too. Here's something else to consider. I think
(25:26):
morbid curiosity isn't just about fear. It's also about identity,
and in our twenties, when we're constantly trying to figure
out who we are, sometimes these examples of you know,
people being murdered, people being killed, these terrible things gets
us to really ask the question of, like, what would
I like, what do I value? What do I want
(25:48):
in my life? How do I relate to the world.
What do I see as justice? What do I see
as revenge? What do I see? What do I want?
And it's just all these big questions and it's incredibly rich,
and you really end up acknowledging a lot more about
yourself and how you see the world. Then you think,
(26:11):
and I know you're probably listening to this singing, like
are we talking about the same thing, like truth? I
just listened to True Crime because I'm bored at work. Yes,
but there's actually more to it than that. Let's not
talk about another essential part of this that we've kind
of been milling around for a little bit, which is
where's the boundary? How do we know what disturbs us
(26:31):
too much? How do we know when we've gone too far.
It's something I have definitely experienced. Being exposed to so
much tragic, awful stuff, it actually can create a lot
of vicarious stress and vicarious trauma. This was my experience
(26:54):
during my true crime phase. You know, I actually felt
like my life was becoming more dangerous and more scary.
I became more suspicious, I became more hypervigilant, even though
none of these things were actually happening to me. But
it did make me apprehensive, It made me anxious, it
made me feel heavy. And you have to remember, you know,
(27:15):
you are what you expose your mind to. You and
your brain have a two way relationship, and the information
and the content that you feed it matters. It influences
our mood, our mindset, our stress levels, our outlook on life.
And so if you are going to work and every
single day you are putting your headphones on and listening
to how Joe murdered Sally and how Igor chopped up
(27:38):
seven people, that is the lens through which you are
going to see the world. You're get to see the
world as dark. Humanity is cruel, people are mean, violence
is normal. When we start doom scrolling and compulsively watching
violent content. You might also have the opposite reaction of
feeling very numb to tragedy and entirely decentized when that happens.
(28:02):
What you're experiencing is something called compassion fatigue. And this
term was originally coined by a psychologist called Charles Figley,
and he was actually using it to describe the emotional
exhaustion experience by care workers and people who work with
trauma victims, so therapists, nurses, aid workers, And he was
seeing this thing where you know, people would come in
(28:23):
and they would be they would not have any limbs,
and they would have been through these terrible things, and
the nurses would be like impatient with them almost and
like not affected by it at all. And this is
how he essentially realized that when you were exposed to
too much terrible stuff, your compassion can actually run out.
And obviously watching horror film is not equivalent to being
(28:47):
a frontline, you know, care worker, But I do think
it's important to recognize the impact of how readily available
horrific media is to us now because we have smartphones,
because of the algorithms, we are constantly exposed to other
people's pain, to tiktoks and news reports and Instagram videos
(29:08):
of just some of the worst things happening in the
world right now. And if you pick up your phone
first thing in the morning, that's the first thing your
brain is seeing. Compassion fatigue is really not something that
we want to mess with because it is very, very
difficult to get out of. It is very difficult to
break free from, much like burnout. Compassion is such a
(29:29):
human part of us, and when it's switched off, it
means that something like really significant has kind of switched
in our brain. It means that there has been an
extreme trauma, or it means that we've kind of, I
don't want to say lost a part of our humanity,
but definitely the empathy centers in our mind have not
been working properly at for a little while. There is
(29:52):
only so much pain that you can absorb as well. Like,
it's not like you have gone in there and switched
your brain off. It's not like it's your fault. Is
your brain trying to protect you and saying, okay, we
need to preserve a sense of safety and a sense
of justice and a sense of fairness and a sense
of kindness and comfort. And this content isn't helping us,
(30:14):
so we need to switch off our reaction to it
entirely to preserve this equilibrium, this emotional equilibrium of safety.
And that's the paradox. Right. We consume this content to
feel more informed, but if we're not careful, it can
end up making us feel helpless or actually making us
be completely closed off to any lessons. So here's the
(30:37):
question you need to ask yourself after you consume this
kind of content. Do you feel more curious and connected
or do you feel more anxious, numb, or fatigued After
consuming this content? Do you feel fearful or do you
feel powerful? Do you feel scared or do you feel neutral?
(31:00):
Have you ever had a moment where you have listened, read,
watched some form of true crime content and thought to yourself,
that isn't that bad or thought, Ooh, I should be
responding to this more intensely than I am. This might
be a sign that you need to take a step back.
(31:20):
If your morbid curiosity leads to empowerment, understanding, even I
guess respectful advocacy, that's one thing. But if it leaves
you feeling hopeless, detached, like the world is a terrifying place,
or like nothing could ever affect you, like you are
like stone. That might be a sign to step back,
start by really asking yourself, why why are you being
(31:42):
drawn to this story or this video? Is it curiosity?
Is it fear? Is it boredom? Is it validation? Notice
how you feel in your body after watching or reading
something intense. Are you exhausted, are you wired? Are you stressed?
And does that actually leave you feeling good? Or is
(32:03):
it something that you would rather avoid? Is there a
way to learn about these things in a more neutralizing,
perhaps safer manner. For example, would it be better to
read a news article rather than listen to a podcast,
or read a Wikipedia page rather than to watch the documentary.
(32:25):
I remember when Lucy Letby trial was going on in
the UK. I don't know if anyone's familiar with this,
but she was a midwife, a nurse who killed a
bunch of babies. I listened to the podcast about it,
what they would report every single day, what was happening
in the trial, and I remember being like, Okay, this
is not healthy. I obviously am drawn to this for
(32:48):
whatever reason, but listening to two hours of episodes per day,
back to back of every single detail is not this
hardest way for me to be learning about this, and
I'm feeling very desensitized to what is going on. I'm
also I'm feeling equally desensitized as well as kind of
(33:10):
upset and numb, and so I started just reading about
it on the news, and I gave myself a little
bit of a break from it, Like I wasn't allowed
to read what happened to the case for a couple
of weeks, and by the time I came back to it,
it was done, and I actually felt like I was
happier and I was lighter afterwards, and I felt less irritated,
perhaps because I wasn't sitting there hearing about some of
(33:32):
the worst crimes ever committed at my desk. Constantly, try
as best as you can as well, to limit passive consumption. Now,
trust me, I know firsthand how hard it is to
not just want to switch off for a while and
mindlessly scroll Instagram. I get it, especially after a stressful day.
(33:52):
But I do think it's important to seek out well researched,
respectful content rather than just letting the hout algorithm feed
you the most sensationalist stories. If you see content that
is that say not interested, block the account, and honestly
ask yourself, if this was my sister, if this was
(34:13):
my parent, if this was my friend, would I be
okay with how they're being portrayed here? Because if the
answer is no, don't give that person that podcast, that
TV station, that show any of your views or attention,
because it really does just promote that increasingly sensationalization of
someone's real life trauma and tragedy for money, Like they're
(34:35):
making money from this, They're making money from the worst
thing that ever happened to someone. I also want you
to balance this heavy content with lightness. You know, try
watching something funny every once in a while, even if
you find it boring compared to your usual true crime.
Go for a hike, call a friend, bake some cookies.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
Literally.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
Last week, I did an episode on how to make
your Life More Fun, which you can listen to for
more ideas. But sometimes, if you are a true crime lover,
you don't realize the toll it's taking until you take
a little step away and you're like, wow, this is
what it's like to live in the likeness. Remember, as humans,
we weren't meant to know all of these details. About
(35:21):
everyone's lives. We weren't meant to be able to pick
up our phones and google a million different cases and
all the different pieces of data and all the different details,
And we weren't meant to be able to be this
aware of what was happening all over the world. Were
we have evolved to exist in tribes of you know,
(35:42):
no more than five hundred people, and to know details
about no more than five hundred people's lives. So you
have to be careful in not overwhelming your brain with
so much intense and just extra stuff that it and
have time to even be present in your own life.
(36:03):
It's okay to say I don't need to know more
about this right now. It's not going to benefit anyone.
I'm going to make a different choice. I'm going to
tune into something else and just set boundaries with the
content like that is a form of emotional self care
and just remember your humanity. It is actually fine to
consume true crime content. I really hope that that has
(36:26):
come through. Like it is a natural human curiosity. It
is evolutionary. It is linked to an ey for control,
it is linked to anxiety relief. It's super normal to
want to know more information for information gathering and for preparedness.
But desensitization is not a badge of honor. You don't
need to watch so much that it doesn't impact you anymore.
(36:48):
Feeling disturbed, feeling emotional, needing to look away, that is
a sign that your empathy is intact. And you need
empathy for almost everything in your life. And if you
switch it off for one thing, you'll switch it off,
you switch it off for everything. So please make sure
that you keep your humanity about yourself whilst you're being entertained.
We are going to take a quick break right now,
(37:09):
but when we return, we have some more listener questions,
some more niche listener questions about this very topic why
we like true crime, so stay with us. So, as
you guys know, I've been doing this new section of
the podcast where I ask you, guys are listeners, to
(37:30):
send in your listener questions. Sometimes topics are just so
broad and deep and nuanced that I can't answer everything
in the main body of the episode. So this just
gives you guys an opportunity that if you have more
specific questions or dilemmas regarding yourself, you can ask them
and get answers. In the episode rather than having to
(37:51):
wait till afterwards. So this first question I thought was
an amazing way to start. Why do I continue to
consume true crime content even though I know it's going
to give me anxiety? So this is kind of interesting.
It's different to everything else that we've discussed. Everything else
we've discussed in this episode has been like, it doesn't
make me anxious. It actually provides me with anxiety relief.
(38:14):
I feel excited rather than anxious. But this is someone
who's saying I am drawn back to this content even
though I know it makes me feel bad. I think
what's probably happening is that you are searching for mastery
and you are searching for control. Anxiety is an emotion
that we are endlessly trying to manage, and so when
(38:36):
we encounter situations where it's triggered and we can't manage it,
that actually contains a lot of fear for us, and
some people choose to avoid those situations. So if you're
scared of flying, really what you're scared of is the
anxiety that associates flying, and so you avoid the trigger,
which is the plane. If you're scared of dogs, really
(38:56):
you're not scared of dogs. You're scared of your anxiety
around dog, and so you avoid pets and you avoid animals.
You seem to be going in the opposite direction. You know,
you feel anxious, but you're running towards it, probably because
your brain is saying, okay, like, we can't let this
control us. We need to continue exposing ourselves in order
to feel like we can do something about this, in
(39:20):
order to not feel beholden to our fear. It also
seems like you are still trying to gain information, so
your brain is kind of being pulled into directions, or
your mind is being pulled into directions. We don't like
this content. It makes me feel bad, but also there
seems to be something necessary in listening to it. There
seems to be some kind of crucial information, So I
(39:42):
can't look away. I need you to listen to your
body and understand that it is giving you all of
the signs that this is maybe just not the right
kind of content for you. If you still have that
morbid fascination, see if you can consume morbid content in
from one of those other categories. So see if you
still get that same kind of entertainment or value from
(40:07):
supernatural things. From dangerous animals, from medical TV shows rather
than true crime. It might be that you still have
this morbid need, but gory into personal violence is just
not for you. And if you find that none of
them are, it's okay to just say, hey, I'm sensitive
to this stuff and just not engage with it. Like
(40:27):
that's not a bad thing. You really aren't missing out
all that much if you're still reading the news, if
you're still got you into the ground, if you're still
listening out, and if you still maintain good personal safety.
I don't think true crime content really actually helps all
that much. To just see if there's another way that
you can perhaps gain that mastery over your anxiety. This
(40:51):
second question, why does watching murderers kill not make me
feel scared when I'm alone? Am I a psycho? No?
It's just that it's not really happening to you. So
it's actually a good thing that you can feel safe
and that you can distinguish between something that has happened
to someone else, something that is perhaps fictional, and something
that is real. It does not make you a psycho.
(41:14):
It actually means that you have a very stable hold
over your reality. It means that you are not letting
things that you see on screen influence your personal life
too much. It's definitely not a bad thing. You are
definitely not a psycho. I would say if you turn
around and said, well, then I want to go a
(41:35):
murder people and I don't feel wit about it, that
would make you a psycho. But you're not actually directly
hurting someone or directly seeing someone be hurt. So I
actually think it goes to show that your brain has
a really good grasp on the difference between reality and fiction,
or your reality and someone else's reality. Our third question
(41:55):
for the day, do you think there's a link between
loving true crime and Freud's theory of thanatos? Thanatos is
one of those words that I've only ever seen written down,
and you actually don't know how it's pronounced. So if
I am butchering it, please let you please let me know.
But yes, absolutely, I'll explain what this concept means if
you haven't heard of it before. Thanatos is basically our
(42:16):
death drive. So Freud really believed that within us there
are these two drives. There's the drive towards life errors,
the drive towards survival, love, connection, creativity, passion, and then
this drive towards aggression, destruction, chaos, and ultimately death. And
he really believed that human behavior is shaped by a
(42:38):
tension between these two forces, and when you are in
a good place, they balance each other out. You have
an equal appreciation for both. When you think about the
obsession many people have with true crime, though, and the
way we consume stories of murder, violence, betrayal, you can
actually see that maybe this fascination tap into our thanatos.
(43:01):
We are being exposed to aggression, destruction, and ultimately death
from a safe distance, and as a result, we're kind
of vicariously dancing with this destruction that Freud says we're
actually drawn to without having to experience it. We are
like submerging ourselves in the representations of violence without feeling it,
(43:24):
and so it might even give us symbolically a sense
of control over our death drive as well. Like here
I am I am standing like ankle deep in horror
and gore and some of the worst things that happened
to people, and I'm not afraid, and that makes me
feel strong, and that makes me feel powerful. That said,
(43:45):
I would say a lot of modern psychologists might push
back and argue that it's more about curiosity. It's more
about empathy, It's more about preparedness and problem solving. You know,
we are drawn to understand the why behind horrific things because,
you know, it allows us to understand people better and
to really explore moral boundaries. It's not because we ultimately
(44:06):
want that to happen to us, which is what Freud
would actually suggest. But love that question. Finally, why can
I read, watch slash, listen to podcasts about certain crimes
but not others? I don't know what a fascinating question.
I would go so far as to say that probably
the crimes you can't consume content about feel perhaps too
(44:30):
close to home, and maybe there's a sense, a greater
sense that they might actually happen to you. You know,
murder is not actually that common. As much as it
dominates true crime content and the news, it's not actually
that common. Whereas when we listen to stories or you know,
(44:51):
whatever it is about sexual based crimes or domestic crimes,
there is sense of like that could maybe happen to me.
The rates of that are a lot higher, or maybe
you know someone who that has happened to, and it's
that personal connection with it that makes it so difficult
for you to engage with it in any way other
(45:14):
than from a place of fear and danger. So I
think that's probably what it is. You know, if you
suddenly had a close friend who tragically died because of
a murder case or something like that, you might find
that actually you couldn't consume it anymore. So maybe it
is that the only way you can is if you
(45:35):
haven't personally been touched by it. But I want to
see some research on that. I really want to do
some more digging on an answer for you. But I
think that is actually all that we have time for today.
If you have made it this far, drop a little
emoji down below showing me what you think of this topic.
It might be a devil face, a scared face, a knife,
(45:56):
whatever emoji best represents the true crime theme of the day.
I hope that I handled this tactfully. I hope that
you felt empathy coming through here. I think talking about
true crime is not something that we can take upon
ourselves lightly. It is It's real and it's happened to people,
and we have to remember that at the end of
(46:18):
the day. Even if the podcast has a cool cover,
even if the host is really fun and spunky like
at the end of the day, that is still a
real victim, and we want to make sure that we
are treating that with respect. Remember if it was you,
if it was someone you loved, would you want this
person to talk about them that way? And there are
(46:38):
so many podcasts and shows who do it so so well,
So let's give them our attention. Let's give them our money,
I guess, in our time, rather than the shows that don't.
But thank you for listening. If you've made it this far,
make sure you are following me on Instagram at that
psychology podcast. Let me know what you thought about this episode.
(46:59):
You can DM me over there, let me know if
you have anything else you want to add. But until
next time, stay safe, be kind, to be gentle with yourself.
I had so much fun exploring this with you today
and we will talk very very soon.
Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
the podcast where we talk through some of the big
life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
mean for our psychology.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to
the podcast. New listeners, old listeners. Wherever you are in
the world, it is so great to have you here
back for another episode as we of course break down
the psychology of our twenties. So, as you guys know,
each week on the podcast, we basically just try and
(00:43):
get a little bit more sense of this decade that
we are living through. From untangling, you know, attachment style dating,
dream jobs, figuring out quarter life crises, all of those things.
It's all part of the beautiful, messy business of growing up.
But some times a topic takes my fancy that is
(01:03):
not unique to our twenties, but yet is so fascinating
and has so much psychology behind it that I cannot
help but do it. And today is one of those topics.
We are heading into slightly murkier waters today and we're
talking about true crime. Why we love true crime, or
(01:23):
this idea of morbid curiosity true crime podcasts, True crime books,
true crime, movies and shows. They are one of the
leading sources of entertainment. They are a billion dollar industry.
People love to be exposed to fear and to tragedy
(01:45):
and to horror and gore. And it seems so counterintuitive.
Why as humans, as a species that spends so much
time pursuing safety and comfort and love, do we have
this kind of darker side of us that is so
curious about things that are so tragic and so awful.
(02:06):
It turns out that liking true crime doesn't mean that
anything is wrong with you. In fact, liking true crime
is actually quite adaptive. It helps us understand fear, it
helps us process danger, it helps us make more sense
of a very unpredictable and chaotic world, and on a
(02:27):
psychological level, it actually may even provide a some kind
of anxiety relief, but be a sense of control that
is otherwise really hard to obtain. It seems very strange
I know that something so scary could actually provide us
with so many benefits and actually leave us feeling positive,
(02:51):
slash entertained, slash relieved. But when you look into the
psychology and even the neuroscience of it, it's incredibly fascinating.
True crime also, I think is a very nuanced moral,
moral domain, moral area. There's so much humanity in how
we handle true crime content, and I think that a
(03:15):
lot of us would understand this feeling of becoming quite
desensitized to it and feeling like these days you can
hear about the worst day of someone's life on TikTok,
or you can tune into my favorite murder and listen
to the story of someone being brutally killed, and that's
(03:36):
just a normal thing. There's so much true crime content
out there. We have to be careful that we continue
to have our humanity intact as we consume it, and
that we continue to understand that these are real people
with real families, with real emotions and real pain who
have been through this, and their stories are not just
for us to listen to or consume on a long
(03:58):
car ride. There's also this other era of this, whereby
when we consume too much, we can actually feel like
the world becomes heavier, because all we are thinking about
and listening to and the information we're giving our brain
is that the world is big and scary. So how
do we know when we have consumed too much true
crime content? How do we know when to stop? And
(04:20):
how do we know that this doesn't make us a
bad person even if you feel very drawn to gruesome,
awful things. These are all the questions, and there's going
to be a lot more questions that we're going to
answer today. But I really want to dive into this
topic of the psychology of morbid curiosity, where the urge
comes from to know about crime, how it works, when
(04:40):
does it peak, and how does it serve us versus
emotionally drain us. This is going to be a very
fascinating topic, a little bit unsettling for sure, but also
I would say kind of comforting and if nothing else,
is very very interesting. So without further ado, let's talk
about psychology behind why we like true crime. Let's start,
(05:08):
as we always do, with the fundamentals, with the basics.
What is morbid curiosity because it is a major precursor
to enjoying true crime and horror content. At its core,
morbid curiosity is basically the tendency to seek out information
or experiences related to dangerous, disturbing, dark, or threatening topics.
(05:33):
And that could mean death, that could mean violence, that
could mean illness, supernatural threats, or even bodily harm. Basically,
all the things that scare us and fascinate us in
equal measure we feel drawn to. And it sounds really counterintuitive, right,
(05:54):
Why would we voluntarily engage with things that scare us,
especially when so much of our ordinary life is avoiding fear.
Researchers actually say that we are driven to be curious
about morbid events because as humans, we have this inbuilt
need to explore novel stimulating things that excite us in
some way. And if you're thinking excited might not be
(06:17):
the right word here, it is worth noting that feeling
excited isn't just something that happens in response to positive experiences.
Excitement actually is just activation of extreme interest, so it
can be in response to negative and alarming events as
well as cheerful or positive ones. So to understand this further,
(06:40):
you need to know this name, doctor Colton Shgrivner. He
is a leading researcher at Arizona State University and he
primarily focuses on true crime, fascination and the psychology behind it.
He actually developed something very useful in this conversation called
the more Curiosity scale. So he wanted to know, Okay,
(07:04):
some people like this kind of dark content, some people
like this. What are the different categories of dark horror
crime content that people like and what kind of person
feels drawn to each of them? So he broke it
down into four main categories. Dangerous animals, shark attacks, poisonous snakes,
(07:24):
that kind of thing. People who like violent interpersonal events,
so crime, murder, assault, criminal psychology, true crime series fans,
that's the one they that's the category they fall into. Next,
supernatural threats, so people who like ghosts, demons, the occult,
paranormal activity films, those kind of things. And finally, bodily violations,
(07:47):
so autopsies, medical anomalies, graphic injuries, car crashes. Not everyone's
more bid curiosity is the same. I personally hate supernatural movies.
I will not watch one, but I love podcasts and
documentaries about animal attacks, specifically this one called Tooth and
(08:10):
Clat like it has been the top of my Spotify
wrapped every single year. I'm fascinated by it. You, on
the other hand, might get super creeped out by that,
and I'm just not even interested in at all. But
really love medical shows or really love, you know, really
graphic pimple popping videos. The way that we experience excitement
(08:33):
and thrill from different morbid events is going to differ
between each of us, and some people might not even
have it at all. Different types of morbid curiosity, though,
those different categories seem to correlate with different psychological traits.
So people hire in openness to experience. For example, they
(08:54):
are more likely to enjoy complex, thought provoking forms of
true crime documentaries or dark philosophical fiction. In this way,
I think it's because they have a real interest in
what drives humans to do certain things. There's a real
intellectual curiosity there. But people with different personalities, particularly people
who are quite kinesthetic and really understand and learn through
(09:19):
their bodies and through movement, they tend to be more
fascinated by bodily violations. So it is actually quite individual.
People who are really like sensation seeking and risk takers,
they are more likely to enjoy graphic horror, intense core,
very thrill heavy mysteries. You can see that it really
(09:41):
comes back to our individual preferences and our character. But
back to that main question why. It turns out that
personality has a lot to do with what kind of
morbid content you like, but also why you like it. So,
linking back to that researcher we talked about before, he
found that there are certain things that people who like
morbid content have in common. So, yes, they might be
(10:05):
driven to different forms of darkness, but they often rate
or rank quite high in terms of rebellious nonconformity. So
they like to push boundaries, they like to challenge norms.
They're also often quite curious, very socially curious, very intellectually curious,
(10:26):
and so they are attracted to things that aren't typically discussed,
that might be a little bit taboo, that also are
very fascinating because of how complex they are. You know,
this idea of why to humans hurt other humans, it's
not something that has a simple answer. Every case is
(10:46):
going to be different. Every person's motivations are going to
be influenced by different experiences in different things, and so
people who are quite socially curious see the minds of
these individuals as a challenge. Another really compelling explanation comes
from evolutionary psychology. So from an evolutionary perspective, morbid curiosity
(11:10):
likely developed as a way to help us navigate and
survive in a very dangerous world. You've got to remember
these things exist for a reason. You know, if morbid
curiosity didn't have a purpose, it wouldn't be as common
as it is. But in early human history, being able
to learn from threats without having to directly experience them
(11:30):
would have been incredibly beneficial. You know, if you watched
someone else eat a poisonous bearer, you knew to avoid it.
If you heard a story about a deadly predator lurking nearby,
you knew to steer clear of that area. Our ancestors
would simulate those threats in their minds as a way
to develop survival strategies. It's basically a primitive version of
(11:53):
higher stakes observational learning. So nowadays we do that through
consuming certain forms of entertainment, and this is where the
concept of threat simulation comes in. Morbid curiosity serves as
a kind of threat learning system. Were drawn to frightening
and graphic content because on a psychological level, our brain
(12:13):
wants to gather information about how to survive, So that
would have been really adaptive previously for helping us to
understand threats from a safe distance. Nowadays, we really seek
out knowledge and danger about the current human condition, not
because we enjoy suffering, but because we want to understand
it more so that we are more prepared, and that
(12:36):
kind of feels comforting and provides a little bit of relief.
There is some further value to consuming this content as well,
and it was really revealed during COVID. During the pandemic,
these researchers were looking at who was doing better, who
was coping with what was a very scary time, who
(12:58):
was coping with all the loss and also all the
uncertainty and all the fear, And they found that it
was people who scored higher on the morbid curiosity scale.
So they liked horror, they liked true crime, who were
more psychologically resilient. Why was this the case, Well, because
they had already rehearsed their approach to fear and danger.
(13:21):
They were familiar with crisis narratives in that sense, their
curiosity about these things beforehand had almost mentally prepared them
for the unknown, like they had most likely simulated and
been exposed to crises over and over again in their mind,
and so that gave them a psychological toolkit to draw
from when real fear kind of arrived, kind of being
(13:43):
inoculated against it in a way, you know, you get
a vaccine, and the reason a vaccine works is because
it exposes you to a small amount of the virus
that is not harmful, and then you're protected when you
do encounter it. These individuals had been inoculating themselves with
scary content building up like this. Almost most immunity, there's
kind of a threat learning. It's not that something is
(14:06):
wrong with you. It's actually very adaptive. This is what
this is saying. It's an emotional armor for a very
chaotic world. And there's also some fascinating neuroscience behind this
as well. If you dip into the brain of someone
who is consuming let's say a serial killer podcast or
watching criminal minds, what you will see is several regions
(14:28):
lighting up. The first one is the amigta, which is
our brain's fear center. It becomes active of course, as
part of the brain becomes active because it's responsible for
detecting threats and initiating, you know, your fight or flight response.
But we also see the activation of this part of
the brain called the insular, and this is a region
(14:49):
involved in processing empathy, so it can also be quite
a human experience. But the fascinating part that they also
would say is that although these brain regions were lighting up.
In general, other parts of the brain were also quite active,
so we actually felt quite safe. These individuals had this
(15:12):
danger response, but it wasn't overriding other responses in their brain.
It was almost borrowing the intensity of these experiences that
they were watching on screen or that they were listening
to for entertainment, and almost as like a training ritual
for our brain. Right It's like you go to the
gym to stretch a muscle. They were watching this true
(15:33):
crime content and it was like their brain was practicing
its fear response whilst also not shutting down the rest
of the body. It's a gym for our emotions. And
a twenty thirteen study at the University of Amsterdam it
did find that horror movies true crime, they do trigger arousal.
They do get our heart rate going, they make us tense,
(15:56):
there's faster breathing. But this alarm reaction is actually mimicking
mimicking actual danger. In some part of our brain knows
that we're okay, it knows that we're physically safe. You'll
still get the adrenaline, you'll still get the thrill. But
there was also this weird sense of satisfaction walking away,
(16:17):
feeling that you have conquered the fear, and that is
what kept people coming back to this form of content.
It was giving us a safe way to experience unsafe things,
tricking us into thinking that we've done something brave. But
these people never actually left the room, they never actually
went outdoors. There's actually been some research into this being
(16:40):
quite good for people with anxiety, you know, morbid curiosity
offers this strange but meaningful form of comfort. And some
of you even reached out to me and said this.
When I posted that I was going to do this episode,
one of you DMed me and said, I have such
intense anxiety, but I love true crime content. I love
(17:02):
learning about danger because it makes it feel knowable. It
like shrinks its power, and you know, that's actually quite
a revealing thing, right. It's the sense that if you
understand the monster, maybe you can survive it. If you've
read the story, you can rewrite the ending. And so
(17:24):
watching true crime almost in a way, is providing people
with a sense of pseudo control that in a very
chaotic world we typically don't actually get. Let's talk about
how gender plays into this as well, because something that
may or may not surprise you, is that women consume
true crime content at a much higher frequency than men.
(17:46):
We're all over it. In some cases. It's been estimated
that around eighty percent of the audience for true crime
is women. I know personally, as a woman, I constantly
hear about gender based crimes, and I'm constantly thinking about
my safety in a way that I know my boyfriend
and my male friends and my dad and my cousins
do not. And I don't know about some of you,
(18:08):
but I find myself consuming a lot of true crime
content where the victims are women. Obviously because crimes against
women are so high and the rates are so much higher,
but also because when I hear stories about women, I
immediately pay attention and I feel instinctively more drawn in.
And that's not a coincidence. Research has really found and
(18:29):
shown time and time again. Men are really interested in supernatural,
horror and aggressive content. Women are drawn to true crime,
serial killers and murder because their interest is stemming not
just from curiosity, but also from kind of a survival
(18:50):
learning mechanism place. Our interest in true crime is really
stemming from the fact that these narratives speak to real
gender base threats. That women are more statistically likely to face,
and in this way, morbid curiosity often reflects real world hypervigilance.
For women, stories about danger can feel really personal, and
(19:13):
so we want to understand what happened. We want to
understand how it happened. We want to know what the
signs were in hindsight, because consciously or not, we are
trying to protect ourselves. True crime, yes, on the surface,
looks like entertainment. It's actually more about risk assessment. It's
not just why did he do it? It's how can
(19:33):
I avoid this happening to me again, linking in the
fact that true crime might be a proxy for a
greater sense of control and for a greater sense of preparedness.
I guess, of course, there is also a fine line
between curiosity, preparedness, and exploitation. You know, when it is
(19:59):
done respectfully and when true crime is considerate of any
victims involved, these experiences can offer really powerful opportunities for
reflection and education. The tricky part is when they begin
to become sensationalized or commercialized. We need to become cautious
of when the suffering of real people becomes entertainment, because
(20:20):
when this happens we risk turning empathy into a real spectacle.
Had an amazing woman on the podcast a few years
back talk about navigating extreme trauma, and her name was Amy,
and her mother was really tragically murdered by her brother,
and then that same brother tried to organize for her
to be murdered by fellow inmates who were about to
(20:42):
get out whilst he was still in prison. And that
was her real life, that was her daily experience of
fear and grief and loss. And she was so open
in sharing about what true crime content meant to her
and how there is a very fine line between talking
about true crime for the purposes of awareness, solving cold cases,
and then just for entertainment. And what she said to
(21:05):
me was, there are a couple ways to really tell
whether what you're consuming is good or bad. Firstly, does
the podcast or show talk about the families? Does it
contain their permission to talk about the case. Do they
bring the family on, do they victim blame or do
they solely blame the perpetrator, the person who was responsible.
(21:28):
Do they bring attention to cold cases or just to
cases where there's been a big trial or there's been
some big, dreary finding or you know, a big, splashy
front page news cover. Do they donate to gendered violence charities?
Yes or no? Do they make jokes about the experiences
(21:51):
or are they really just focused on the facts and
the truth. These are important questions to ask if you
want to keep listening, if you want to keep watching,
if you want to keep a true crime in a
way that preserves your humanity, because I don't think it's
bad to want to know it's actually profoundly human, as
we've discussed, but also can only be profoundly human if
(22:11):
it contains compassion and empathy. Because if you're just consuming
to be like, oh I hope this doesn't happen to me,
or oh wow, that's interesting and I'm bored and I
need a thrill, I don't think that's a kind way
to treat what is someone else's life and someone else's death. Perhaps, Okay,
we are going to take a short break, but when
we return, we're going to explore actually why our morbid
(22:34):
curiosity typically peaks in our twenties, and also how you
can find some balance with the amount of content out there.
So stay with us. So let's sum in on why
true crime and horror consumption actually peaks in our twenties,
(22:54):
according to research. I have been thinking about this all
week because I had no idea that this was the case,
and still until I started to really research this episode,
and then I found all these fascinating statistics that basically
said that the biggest audience for true crime is yes,
women of all ages, but people in their twenties makeup
(23:16):
probably like one of the second biggest groups. I think
the reason why in this decade we are so drawn
to this kind of stuff is because there is a
lot of instability during this period. There are a lot
of existential questions. There's new independence. For many of us.
It's the first time we truly become aware of our
(23:37):
own mortality, and not in an abstract sense, but in
a real, tangible way. This is the decade of a
lot of firsts and a lot of the first time.
We face a lot of existential questions. We move out,
we lose loved ones, we see injustice upclose. We gain independence,
but also anxiety and suddenly the idea of death or
(23:57):
danger or grief. It isn't just theory radical, it's real.
And with all of that comes the question, what does
it really mean to just face the worst and am
I going to be capable when it happens? Morbid curiosity
becomes a way to confront these questions without having to
live them. You know, by watching, listening, reading, imagining, we
(24:20):
test out different scenarios. You know, what if I was
in that situation? How would I react, how would I survive?
How would I feel? There's also a deep need in
our twenties to figure out how the world works, and
morbid curiosity is part of that. It helps us learn
about the worst case scenarios so that maybe we can
(24:42):
prevent them or at least understand them. And it's kind
of a bonding experience. There is a social side to
this as well, you know, sharing scary stories, true crime, obsessions,
late night TikTok, rabbit holes. It can be such a
bonding experience and there is the kind of vulnerability in
admitting that we're scared or fascinated by this dark stuff
(25:05):
and then hearing someone else say, yeah, I also am
fascinated by that, and let's talk about it together. You know,
It's just something that bonds people and that fascinates us,
and that I think brings us together as this human
species of like, wow, do you feel this complex emotion.
I do too. Here's something else to consider. I think
(25:26):
morbid curiosity isn't just about fear. It's also about identity,
and in our twenties, when we're constantly trying to figure
out who we are, sometimes these examples of you know,
people being murdered, people being killed, these terrible things gets
us to really ask the question of, like, what would
I like, what do I value? What do I want
(25:48):
in my life? How do I relate to the world.
What do I see as justice? What do I see
as revenge? What do I see? What do I want?
And it's just all these big questions and it's incredibly rich,
and you really end up acknowledging a lot more about
yourself and how you see the world. Then you think,
(26:11):
and I know you're probably listening to this singing, like
are we talking about the same thing, like truth? I
just listened to True Crime because I'm bored at work. Yes,
but there's actually more to it than that. Let's not
talk about another essential part of this that we've kind
of been milling around for a little bit, which is
where's the boundary? How do we know what disturbs us
(26:31):
too much? How do we know when we've gone too far.
It's something I have definitely experienced. Being exposed to so
much tragic, awful stuff, it actually can create a lot
of vicarious stress and vicarious trauma. This was my experience
(26:54):
during my true crime phase. You know, I actually felt
like my life was becoming more dangerous and more scary.
I became more suspicious, I became more hypervigilant, even though
none of these things were actually happening to me. But
it did make me apprehensive, It made me anxious, it
made me feel heavy. And you have to remember, you know,
(27:15):
you are what you expose your mind to. You and
your brain have a two way relationship, and the information
and the content that you feed it matters. It influences
our mood, our mindset, our stress levels, our outlook on life.
And so if you are going to work and every
single day you are putting your headphones on and listening
to how Joe murdered Sally and how Igor chopped up
(27:38):
seven people, that is the lens through which you are
going to see the world. You're get to see the
world as dark. Humanity is cruel, people are mean, violence
is normal. When we start doom scrolling and compulsively watching
violent content. You might also have the opposite reaction of
feeling very numb to tragedy and entirely decentized when that happens.
(28:02):
What you're experiencing is something called compassion fatigue. And this
term was originally coined by a psychologist called Charles Figley,
and he was actually using it to describe the emotional
exhaustion experience by care workers and people who work with
trauma victims, so therapists, nurses, aid workers, And he was
seeing this thing where you know, people would come in
(28:23):
and they would be they would not have any limbs,
and they would have been through these terrible things, and
the nurses would be like impatient with them almost and
like not affected by it at all. And this is
how he essentially realized that when you were exposed to
too much terrible stuff, your compassion can actually run out.
And obviously watching horror film is not equivalent to being
(28:47):
a frontline, you know, care worker, But I do think
it's important to recognize the impact of how readily available
horrific media is to us now because we have smartphones,
because of the algorithms, we are constantly exposed to other
people's pain, to tiktoks and news reports and Instagram videos
(29:08):
of just some of the worst things happening in the
world right now. And if you pick up your phone
first thing in the morning, that's the first thing your
brain is seeing. Compassion fatigue is really not something that
we want to mess with because it is very, very
difficult to get out of. It is very difficult to
break free from, much like burnout. Compassion is such a
(29:29):
human part of us, and when it's switched off, it
means that something like really significant has kind of switched
in our brain. It means that there has been an
extreme trauma, or it means that we've kind of, I
don't want to say lost a part of our humanity,
but definitely the empathy centers in our mind have not
been working properly at for a little while. There is
(29:52):
only so much pain that you can absorb as well. Like,
it's not like you have gone in there and switched
your brain off. It's not like it's your fault. Is
your brain trying to protect you and saying, okay, we
need to preserve a sense of safety and a sense
of justice and a sense of fairness and a sense
of kindness and comfort. And this content isn't helping us,
(30:14):
so we need to switch off our reaction to it
entirely to preserve this equilibrium, this emotional equilibrium of safety.
And that's the paradox. Right. We consume this content to
feel more informed, but if we're not careful, it can
end up making us feel helpless or actually making us
be completely closed off to any lessons. So here's the
(30:37):
question you need to ask yourself after you consume this
kind of content. Do you feel more curious and connected
or do you feel more anxious, numb, or fatigued After
consuming this content? Do you feel fearful or do you
feel powerful? Do you feel scared or do you feel neutral?
(31:00):
Have you ever had a moment where you have listened, read,
watched some form of true crime content and thought to yourself,
that isn't that bad or thought, Ooh, I should be
responding to this more intensely than I am. This might
be a sign that you need to take a step back.
(31:20):
If your morbid curiosity leads to empowerment, understanding, even I
guess respectful advocacy, that's one thing. But if it leaves
you feeling hopeless, detached, like the world is a terrifying place,
or like nothing could ever affect you, like you are
like stone. That might be a sign to step back,
start by really asking yourself, why why are you being
(31:42):
drawn to this story or this video? Is it curiosity?
Is it fear? Is it boredom? Is it validation? Notice
how you feel in your body after watching or reading
something intense. Are you exhausted, are you wired? Are you stressed?
And does that actually leave you feeling good? Or is
(32:03):
it something that you would rather avoid? Is there a
way to learn about these things in a more neutralizing,
perhaps safer manner. For example, would it be better to
read a news article rather than listen to a podcast,
or read a Wikipedia page rather than to watch the documentary.
(32:25):
I remember when Lucy Letby trial was going on in
the UK. I don't know if anyone's familiar with this,
but she was a midwife, a nurse who killed a
bunch of babies. I listened to the podcast about it,
what they would report every single day, what was happening
in the trial, and I remember being like, Okay, this
is not healthy. I obviously am drawn to this for
(32:48):
whatever reason, but listening to two hours of episodes per day,
back to back of every single detail is not this
hardest way for me to be learning about this, and
I'm feeling very desensitized to what is going on. I'm
also I'm feeling equally desensitized as well as kind of
(33:10):
upset and numb, and so I started just reading about
it on the news, and I gave myself a little
bit of a break from it, Like I wasn't allowed
to read what happened to the case for a couple
of weeks, and by the time I came back to it,
it was done, and I actually felt like I was
happier and I was lighter afterwards, and I felt less irritated,
perhaps because I wasn't sitting there hearing about some of
(33:32):
the worst crimes ever committed at my desk. Constantly, try
as best as you can as well, to limit passive consumption. Now,
trust me, I know firsthand how hard it is to
not just want to switch off for a while and
mindlessly scroll Instagram. I get it, especially after a stressful day.
(33:52):
But I do think it's important to seek out well researched,
respectful content rather than just letting the hout algorithm feed
you the most sensationalist stories. If you see content that
is that say not interested, block the account, and honestly
ask yourself, if this was my sister, if this was
(34:13):
my parent, if this was my friend, would I be
okay with how they're being portrayed here? Because if the
answer is no, don't give that person that podcast, that
TV station, that show any of your views or attention,
because it really does just promote that increasingly sensationalization of
someone's real life trauma and tragedy for money, Like they're
(34:35):
making money from this, They're making money from the worst
thing that ever happened to someone. I also want you
to balance this heavy content with lightness. You know, try
watching something funny every once in a while, even if
you find it boring compared to your usual true crime.
Go for a hike, call a friend, bake some cookies.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
Literally.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
Last week, I did an episode on how to make
your Life More Fun, which you can listen to for
more ideas. But sometimes, if you are a true crime lover,
you don't realize the toll it's taking until you take
a little step away and you're like, wow, this is
what it's like to live in the likeness. Remember, as humans,
we weren't meant to know all of these details. About
(35:21):
everyone's lives. We weren't meant to be able to pick
up our phones and google a million different cases and
all the different pieces of data and all the different details,
And we weren't meant to be able to be this
aware of what was happening all over the world. Were
we have evolved to exist in tribes of you know,
(35:42):
no more than five hundred people, and to know details
about no more than five hundred people's lives. So you
have to be careful in not overwhelming your brain with
so much intense and just extra stuff that it and
have time to even be present in your own life.
(36:03):
It's okay to say I don't need to know more
about this right now. It's not going to benefit anyone.
I'm going to make a different choice. I'm going to
tune into something else and just set boundaries with the
content like that is a form of emotional self care
and just remember your humanity. It is actually fine to
consume true crime content. I really hope that that has
(36:26):
come through. Like it is a natural human curiosity. It
is evolutionary. It is linked to an ey for control,
it is linked to anxiety relief. It's super normal to
want to know more information for information gathering and for preparedness.
But desensitization is not a badge of honor. You don't
need to watch so much that it doesn't impact you anymore.
(36:48):
Feeling disturbed, feeling emotional, needing to look away, that is
a sign that your empathy is intact. And you need
empathy for almost everything in your life. And if you
switch it off for one thing, you'll switch it off,
you switch it off for everything. So please make sure
that you keep your humanity about yourself whilst you're being entertained.
We are going to take a quick break right now,
(37:09):
but when we return, we have some more listener questions,
some more niche listener questions about this very topic why
we like true crime, so stay with us. So, as
you guys know, I've been doing this new section of
the podcast where I ask you, guys are listeners, to
(37:30):
send in your listener questions. Sometimes topics are just so
broad and deep and nuanced that I can't answer everything
in the main body of the episode. So this just
gives you guys an opportunity that if you have more
specific questions or dilemmas regarding yourself, you can ask them
and get answers. In the episode rather than having to
(37:51):
wait till afterwards. So this first question I thought was
an amazing way to start. Why do I continue to
consume true crime content even though I know it's going
to give me anxiety? So this is kind of interesting.
It's different to everything else that we've discussed. Everything else
we've discussed in this episode has been like, it doesn't
make me anxious. It actually provides me with anxiety relief.
(38:14):
I feel excited rather than anxious. But this is someone
who's saying I am drawn back to this content even
though I know it makes me feel bad. I think
what's probably happening is that you are searching for mastery
and you are searching for control. Anxiety is an emotion
that we are endlessly trying to manage, and so when
(38:36):
we encounter situations where it's triggered and we can't manage it,
that actually contains a lot of fear for us, and
some people choose to avoid those situations. So if you're
scared of flying, really what you're scared of is the
anxiety that associates flying, and so you avoid the trigger,
which is the plane. If you're scared of dogs, really
(38:56):
you're not scared of dogs. You're scared of your anxiety
around dog, and so you avoid pets and you avoid animals.
You seem to be going in the opposite direction. You know,
you feel anxious, but you're running towards it, probably because
your brain is saying, okay, like, we can't let this
control us. We need to continue exposing ourselves in order
to feel like we can do something about this, in
(39:20):
order to not feel beholden to our fear. It also
seems like you are still trying to gain information, so
your brain is kind of being pulled into directions, or
your mind is being pulled into directions. We don't like
this content. It makes me feel bad, but also there
seems to be something necessary in listening to it. There
seems to be some kind of crucial information, So I
(39:42):
can't look away. I need you to listen to your
body and understand that it is giving you all of
the signs that this is maybe just not the right
kind of content for you. If you still have that
morbid fascination, see if you can consume morbid content in
from one of those other categories. So see if you
still get that same kind of entertainment or value from
(40:07):
supernatural things. From dangerous animals, from medical TV shows rather
than true crime. It might be that you still have
this morbid need, but gory into personal violence is just
not for you. And if you find that none of
them are, it's okay to just say, hey, I'm sensitive
to this stuff and just not engage with it. Like
(40:27):
that's not a bad thing. You really aren't missing out
all that much if you're still reading the news, if
you're still got you into the ground, if you're still
listening out, and if you still maintain good personal safety.
I don't think true crime content really actually helps all
that much. To just see if there's another way that
you can perhaps gain that mastery over your anxiety. This
(40:51):
second question, why does watching murderers kill not make me
feel scared when I'm alone? Am I a psycho? No?
It's just that it's not really happening to you. So
it's actually a good thing that you can feel safe
and that you can distinguish between something that has happened
to someone else, something that is perhaps fictional, and something
that is real. It does not make you a psycho.
(41:14):
It actually means that you have a very stable hold
over your reality. It means that you are not letting
things that you see on screen influence your personal life
too much. It's definitely not a bad thing. You are
definitely not a psycho. I would say if you turn
around and said, well, then I want to go a
(41:35):
murder people and I don't feel wit about it, that
would make you a psycho. But you're not actually directly
hurting someone or directly seeing someone be hurt. So I
actually think it goes to show that your brain has
a really good grasp on the difference between reality and fiction,
or your reality and someone else's reality. Our third question
(41:55):
for the day, do you think there's a link between
loving true crime and Freud's theory of thanatos? Thanatos is
one of those words that I've only ever seen written down,
and you actually don't know how it's pronounced. So if
I am butchering it, please let you please let me know.
But yes, absolutely, I'll explain what this concept means if
you haven't heard of it before. Thanatos is basically our
(42:16):
death drive. So Freud really believed that within us there
are these two drives. There's the drive towards life errors,
the drive towards survival, love, connection, creativity, passion, and then
this drive towards aggression, destruction, chaos, and ultimately death. And
he really believed that human behavior is shaped by a
(42:38):
tension between these two forces, and when you are in
a good place, they balance each other out. You have
an equal appreciation for both. When you think about the
obsession many people have with true crime, though, and the
way we consume stories of murder, violence, betrayal, you can
actually see that maybe this fascination tap into our thanatos.
(43:01):
We are being exposed to aggression, destruction, and ultimately death
from a safe distance, and as a result, we're kind
of vicariously dancing with this destruction that Freud says we're
actually drawn to without having to experience it. We are
like submerging ourselves in the representations of violence without feeling it,
(43:24):
and so it might even give us symbolically a sense
of control over our death drive as well. Like here
I am I am standing like ankle deep in horror
and gore and some of the worst things that happened
to people, and I'm not afraid, and that makes me
feel strong, and that makes me feel powerful. That said,
(43:45):
I would say a lot of modern psychologists might push
back and argue that it's more about curiosity. It's more
about empathy, It's more about preparedness and problem solving. You know,
we are drawn to understand the why behind horrific things because,
you know, it allows us to understand people better and
to really explore moral boundaries. It's not because we ultimately
(44:06):
want that to happen to us, which is what Freud
would actually suggest. But love that question. Finally, why can
I read, watch slash, listen to podcasts about certain crimes
but not others? I don't know what a fascinating question.
I would go so far as to say that probably
the crimes you can't consume content about feel perhaps too
(44:30):
close to home, and maybe there's a sense, a greater
sense that they might actually happen to you. You know,
murder is not actually that common. As much as it
dominates true crime content and the news, it's not actually
that common. Whereas when we listen to stories or you know,
(44:51):
whatever it is about sexual based crimes or domestic crimes,
there is sense of like that could maybe happen to me.
The rates of that are a lot higher, or maybe
you know someone who that has happened to, and it's
that personal connection with it that makes it so difficult
for you to engage with it in any way other
(45:14):
than from a place of fear and danger. So I
think that's probably what it is. You know, if you
suddenly had a close friend who tragically died because of
a murder case or something like that, you might find
that actually you couldn't consume it anymore. So maybe it
is that the only way you can is if you
(45:35):
haven't personally been touched by it. But I want to
see some research on that. I really want to do
some more digging on an answer for you. But I
think that is actually all that we have time for today.
If you have made it this far, drop a little
emoji down below showing me what you think of this topic.
It might be a devil face, a scared face, a knife,
(45:56):
whatever emoji best represents the true crime theme of the day.
I hope that I handled this tactfully. I hope that
you felt empathy coming through here. I think talking about
true crime is not something that we can take upon
ourselves lightly. It is It's real and it's happened to people,
and we have to remember that at the end of
(46:18):
the day. Even if the podcast has a cool cover,
even if the host is really fun and spunky like
at the end of the day, that is still a
real victim, and we want to make sure that we
are treating that with respect. Remember if it was you,
if it was someone you loved, would you want this
person to talk about them that way? And there are
(46:38):
so many podcasts and shows who do it so so well,
So let's give them our attention. Let's give them our money,
I guess, in our time, rather than the shows that don't.
But thank you for listening. If you've made it this far,
make sure you are following me on Instagram at that
psychology podcast. Let me know what you thought about this episode.
(46:59):
You can DM me over there, let me know if
you have anything else you want to add. But until
next time, stay safe, be kind, to be gentle with yourself.
I had so much fun exploring this with you today
and we will talk very very soon.
Host
Jemma Sbeghen
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