lowpolyharrymason

[lowpolyharrymason]

my deep hatred for (violent) true crime.

I have a deep hatred for true crime content. To be specific, I have a deep hatred for true crime about violent and sexual crimes. I think that content would probably unsettle me regardless, but my true hatred for it comes from an event in my own life.

In 2007, not even a whole month after graduating from high school, I lost one of my closest friends. I got a call from her sister that night asking if I’d heard from her. I had not. No one had for hours. We spent the next days searching for her. Those days were some of the worst days of my life. She was found, but not alive. The world was never the same for me after that.

I don’t want to talk about my friend just as an assault and murder victim. I want to talk about her as she was – a vibrant and passionate girl. She wanted to be a veterinarian. She loved Beauty and the Beast. One of her loves was playing the clarinet in our school’s marching band. She had a boyfriend she loved so much, her face lit up when she talked about him. She was so caring. So fired up. A firecracker.

We met in the 7th grade in band class. I was a shy kid, but we both played clarinet, we discovered we had the same birthday, and we became fast friends from there. I’ve seen people joke that introverts get adopted into friendships by extroverts. That was definitely the case here.

It still hurts to talk about this all. But it feels good to tell people about her. Who she was as a person. What defined her.

This is where my hatred of true crime lies.

I’ve seen true crime popularize people talking about violent, disturbing crimes, many of which are unsolved. I’ve seen them dig up crimes from what seems to them like so long ago. For the people left in the wake of these crimes, it was not long ago. And that pain never goes away.

I’ve seen people try to argue that these programs are purely educational. Perhaps there are some that are. But what I’ve seen time and time again is people capitalizing on the deaths of strangers. They’re profiting off of the stories of people who lived full lives, but now are being reduced to the circumstances surrounding their death. So often, they don’t care about them as a person. They care about them as a story.

The ones left behind are having traumatic events dug up again and again.

It’s good to have awareness of how to protect yourself. It’s good to tell others to be aware of their surroundings, to carry alarms, to share their locations with others. What’s not good is detailing a stalking and kidnapping and murder. My friend’s disappearance and death remain as story fodder for morbid people who want to listen to the details.

Trauma never truly leaves you. You learn to grow around it. To keep it in check. Unfortunately, it seems that sometimes you’ll see a TikTok talking about your friend, complete with photos and security footage. Sometimes you’ll see a TV program talking about her, complete with reenactments. Sometimes the most random things will trigger the thoughts of them – hearing a date, a song, a phrase, anything. All of a sudden, that trauma leaks back into your life. It escapes the space it occupies in your heart and takes control. Even if that moment is short, it feels so heavy. It feels like it lasts forever. And it weighs on you again.

My biggest issue is with true crime content that is making money off of these stories. What gives you the right to spread around the story of an awful event without considering those who have close connections to it? The families. The friends. All of the people who loved them. You’re making money while all that the people left behind get recurring trauma. A wound that is opened over and over and over again. Just when you think you’re okay, it sneaks up on you again.

Before it’s said – I do not seek out this kind of content. I know what’s said, “Just don’t look at it if you don’t like it.” Sometimes these things pass me and the damage is done before I can click away.

Just remember. Profiting off of the pain and suffering of others is despicable.