Romanticizing serial killers on social media needs to stop (Opinion)
People on social media need to realize that serial killers and their victims were real people, not just a fictional story
Romanticizing serial killers needs to stop. It’s disrespectful and unacceptable
On social media, popular tv shows and movies are hotly debated. Documentaries about real life crime have brought to light how the internet romanticizes serial killers. The most recent one is the story of Jeffery Dahmer because of the new show Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story on Netflix.
There have been many posts about the series claiming Jeffrey was “hot” and that people supposedly “support” his actions because Evan Peters plays him. There have been many TikTok edits sexualizing what Peters played in the show, which involved scenes where Jeffery was sexually assaulting his victims, or where he had just murdered someone and was breathing heavily. Some have even made slideshows where they do the “haha, made you say underwear” trend, with Jeffrey and one of his victims, and at the end a crime scene photo of that victim would appear.
Because of trends like this, some users have commented about leaked Polaroids that Dahmer himself took, and others have begged for link access to see the Polaroids, both of which are entirely inappropriate. The fact that you can find them on Google with one simple search is disrespectful to the victims and the people who were affected by the killings.
This isn’t the first time people have reacted like this either. In 2021 a documentary was released called “Night Stalker” which focuses on a man named Richard Ramirez who murdered 15 people in California in the 1980s. When Ramirez was put on trial, his popularity grew. Women were showing up to his trials to show their devotion to him, writing fan mail, and becoming infatuated with him.
They ignored that he molested children, sexually assaulted women, and murdered many people — all simply because of his attractive appearance, which made him known for his looks rather than his actions. There is one Twitter account made for Ramirez, which posted a photo of Ramirez captioned: “I’m in love with Richard Ramirez, and nobody can tell me different” and “every part of Richard Ramirez is perfect”, among many other offensive comments.
It’s the same thing with Ted Bundy. In 2019, Netflix released Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile starring Zac Efron. Because of his good looks reviewers said, “It was difficult to view him as a serial killer, and his role as a villain was incredibly sexualized, which created a huge fandom behind it[,] making girls want a serial killer as a boyfriend. It was a hard role to be taken seriously.” There are a lot of posts and accounts sexualizing Bundy, such as teen girls on social media saying “he’d get me,” or “I don’t blame those girls; I would’ve gone with him too”, as if they knew that he was a serial killer, and willingly went with him.
Idolization like this can be found all over social media, it’s disgusting and incredibly disrespectful to the victims and their families. People don’t realize that it’s not just a tv show with a hot guy playing a murderer that didn’t actually exist and do terrible things — it’s real life, and their victims were real people that were brutally killed. Trying to justify it with saying, “but it’s the actor, not the person whose acting,” is not logical — there are other characters they portray, there’s no need to romanticize the one where they’re playing a serial killer. Individuals must stop romanticizing serial killers for their “good looks” and actually acknowledge what they did to innocent people.
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Haley is a sophomore. She enjoys reading, music, and drawing. She is looking forward to continuing to write for The Mav Newspaper, and improving her writing skills.
Sanja • Nov 25, 2024 at 6:07 am
So true. I was part of the “somehow involuntarily fascinated crowd” first when I got to know the crimes of Ted Bundy. The era where the murders were presented in, his attractiveness, yes, it made me want to know all about this and him. It brought out a strange curiosity.
I think the reason for people getting fascinated by them is because of how media presents them, but also because it is so hard to actually fathom, for your brain and mind to grasp, the horrors of the murderers. Normal personens don’t think of murder, neither have been subjected to a dangerous situation with serial killers.they seldom get to know the raw reality of the victims.
We just turn a blind eye to identifying with victims, because it’s is just not possible to fully feel the extreme vulnerability and fear without getting all messed up, maybe for life.
As an example: I came over the case of the Toolbox killers via YouTube
It is the most dreadful I have always come across.
If you have ever idolized such disturbed individuals as Dahmer or Bundy, you will definitely be cured by this.
Anyway, everywhere on the internet there are warnings about listening to a tape of one of the murders found in the car of the serial killer duo, Toolbox murders). There is a transcript of the murder spread on internet and there is some documentary from the trial when journalists (NBC) filmed how members of the jurors fled out of court when listening to the victims scream on the rape.
And in that documentary over the trials of this case, you suddenly hear a tiny bit of her screaming, unexpectingly.
I decided before I Watched that footage of the trial, not to ever read the transcript or to listen to parts of the tape because I knew I would regret it deeply, but wasn’t warned. You can actually hear a tiny part of it in some documentaries, which made me sick.
And, besides feeling like being abused and that clip inflicting an almost physical reaction of fear and grief, this changed my whole perspective on true crime, from some cosy, chilling, entertainment to a rather superficial, unethical business who makes money out if the sufferings of the victims.
Nevermore do I want to hear anything like that! It stayed with me for days.
And the conclusion is: that this reactions and feelings are reality for most victims and their loved ones. I got furious, terrified and utterly sad by listening by mistake to some seconds of that screaming. An FBI-investigator took his own life after working with the case, it affected him deeply. Read Reddit and find out how many people who wish they never have heard or knew so many details about the murder.
We most stop being so fascinated and curious about the nature of sick individuals, or at least portray them in a true and realistic manner.
They are sad, tragic scumbags. Lying cowards who prey on the vulnerable. They don’t deserve anyone’s affection,attention or understanding from the public, no matter what they endured in their childhood, or their previous state of mental health
The only ones who needs understanding are the families and loves ones of the victims.
I guess there is also no idolizing of these individuals because those guys are not attractive, and the crimes are too gruesome.
It is just plain horrific and nothing to idolize. People need to understand that horror and extreme fear is how victims felt,and feel up to this day, when being subjected to gruesome, sadistic predators.
The prosecutor in the case of the toolboxmurderers cried openly when having to go through those tapes.
I don’t fancy that freaks can listen to this and get off,and the real tape is, fortunately, not accessible for the public, but serve as educational in desensibiltating-training within FBI. But maybe if we truly understood the horror that took, and takes place for the victims, we would stop seeing the killers as cool, but somehow twisted deviant dudes.
Ryan Dallas • Nov 18, 2022 at 8:50 am
This is a great article and I totally agree with you as well. It’s weird and disturbing that people are doing this.
Chiara Puccia • Nov 18, 2022 at 8:43 am
Thank you for writing this article. Most of the times, when someone think about the serial killers, they tend to think about their physicals aspect and not about the horrible things that they made, so thank you for exposing what is wrong about that.