Robin Crotty traces the history of true crime as we know it while delving into the ethical concerns that cloud the genre.
Netflix’s recent true crime documentary, Unknown Number: The High School Catfish, which follows an intense and obscure case of extreme cyberbullying, has been a hot topic of conversation on social media since its release in late August. Director Skye Borgman left viewers reeling through the highly stylised unveiling of a plot twist. The shock turn doubles as the most talked about aspect of the documentary and the biggest source of controversy and concern, raising questions about how true crime is presented and consumed.
The true crime genre exploded in popularity with the release of the podcast Serial in 2014. The first season explored the murder of Korean-American teenager Hae Min Lee in 1999 and the subsequent conviction of her ex-boyfriend, Adnan Syed for first degree murder in 2000. The podcast, headed by investigative journalist Sarah Koenig, featured interviews with involved persons including Syed himself, who insisted upon his innocence. The podcast garnered 300 million downloads and won a multitude of journalistic awards, as well as spawning an unprecedented increase in true crime content in the mainstream.
More recently, the disturbingly-named podcast My Favorite Murder has reached 35 million monthly listeners. Netflix has been ceaselessly churning out true crime content, with series like Making a Murderer gaining 19.3 million viewers in only 35 days. When watching Unknown Number, a few features may stand out as unusual to the viewer. The victims are not only interviewed but act out short scenes, such as receiving a text, or playing basketball. The interviews with the teenage victims in their own bedrooms, the large pink type introducing them, and the distorted voice reading the text messages in a dramatic manner is perhaps more reminiscent of a teen drama or reality TV series than a serious documentary. The decisions made surrounding the aesthetics of the documentary make it highly digestible, with the potential or even intent of going viral online.
In an age where the media is increasingly fighting for your attention, true crime has an immediate advantage. It is often salacious in its bare facts, has built-in shock factor and real-life stakes. We have long been drawn to it, with pamphlets detailing gruesome crimes circulating in the 16th century. The modern love affair with true crime is generally recognised as beginning with Truman Capote’s 1966 novel In Cold Blood, which encountered issues surrounding artistic liberties. A certain narrative must be decided on in the depiction of a nonfiction story, but the effects of these choices cannot be ignored. Borgman undoubtedly decided on the light in which to show this story. True crime can easily be exploitative, not only of the victims but also of the perpetrator. The inclusion of the perpetrator and their side of the story in the documentary is an interesting aspect of Unknown Number. It begs the question; how did those featured in the documentary expect to be portrayed? This ethical issue was also encountered in HBO’s highly popular show The Jinx.
Questions surrounding the ethics of true crime are commonplace. The genre tries to blur the lines between entertainment and information, with many true crime enthusiasts, the majority of whom are women, claiming they consume the genre to better protect and inform themselves. The sensational nature of true crime content makes this claim doubtful. True crime series gravitates toward the most bizarre and horrifying stories, with many of the true crime documentaries on Borgman’s own resume containing unexpected turns or reveals. But real life does not have plot twists, as it is fiction, not fact, that contains these plot devices. How Unknown Number conceals the outcome and deceives the audience for half the running time is skillful story telling. However, for those in Unknown Number, the barrage of messages was not entertaining, and the discovery of the culprit was not a twist, but a traumatising event, leaving the very real people affected for years to come, if not forever.
The viewer or listener of true crime related content, at the very core of it, is being entertained by another person’s darkest moments. These TV series, documentaries, podcasts, TikToks, YouTube videos can serve to retraumatise victims and their loved ones and expose them to an onslaught of media attention. For the audience, true crime encourages a darker view of the world and desensitises us to cruelty and violence. The compression and distortion of tragedy, trauma and mental illness into watchable, colourful, bingeable content is inherently ethically questionable.