Is True Crime Exploitative or Educational?

Commentary by Paris Murray. Photo courtesy of Netflix.

November 7, 2022. By now, I’m sure you all have heard of the new number one trending show on Netflix, Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. Everyone and their mother has been talking about it, along with relatives of those victims. But is true crime exploitative or educational?

Exploitation is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as, “the action or fact of treating someone unfairly in order to benefit from their work.” According to Super Summary, “58% of respondents said they regularly enjoy true crime content with TV shows dominating other formats. Compared to 15% who turned to podcasts, and 14% and 5% who preferred movies and books, respectively, 66% of respondents said their favorite true crime format was TV shows.” However, we, as viewers, see it from the outside looking in. What about the victims' families? After all, if it's handled with respect and care, it shouldn't be too harmful, right?

Opening YouTube and searching ¨̈true crime¨ I found the usual things you'd see in normal documentaries: interviews, narration, maybe a few closeups of photos. Many people don't see this as interesting because it's nothing to look at. The views on these videos average around 100-400k. However, I then found a subculture on YouTube of people multitasking as they took on true crime cases…True Crime & Wine, True Crime Mukang, True Crime & Makeup, True Crime & Baking, and even ASMR True Crime. These videos all received over 1 million views. You could say watching the reporter making a joke is entertaining but that's no way to treat the dead. These YouTubers aren't the ones to blame though, or at least not the only ones. Tons of people almost idolize these killers, completely disregarding the pain they not only put the victims through, but also their families. People talking of the things these killers did in awe isn't the reaction these directors and victims wanted.

So, what should we do? Should we hold these YouTubers accountable? Maybe change the documentary format? This generation grew up watching YouTube and Netflix on their parents phones or on their iPads, so we have short attention spans. I do believe documentary formats of sitting and talking for an hour can be boring to some while acting it out is a lot more entertaining. 

But at the end of the day, it's for education. Many directors exaggerate or leave things out, which are awful for the victims and their families. Documentaries should adapt to how teenagers and young adults learn, and that's through entertainment. I also believe this generation should change the way we look at these documentaries and series, in order to understand that the victims deserve dignity and respect as people—not just actors or movie characters.

Paris Murray is a junior at Friendship Collegiate Academy.