Twisted fascinations in the modern age
Society loves their serial killers. They have plastered their faces, stories onto our TV screens, crime novels, newsrooms and even psychology class. When the topic is brought up we all add our two-cents about historic killers such as the immortalized Jack the Ripper, the notorious Zodiac Killer, Ted Bundy and even the fictional Hannibal Lector. Society loves to talk about murder as well, forget about new policies or even new progress in medicine the moment a news agency or daily show hears about a new juicy murder that’s the first thing we see on the screen and even worse they play it like sports. Similar to the Nancy Grace Show, which is a master of the dark arts of giving viewers the best dramatic and uninformed news broadcast they could ever see.
[pullquote align=”left” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Society loves to talk about murder…[/pullquote]
Our fascination with serial killers also stems from a psychological need to understand why someone could hurt and torture so many people. A fascination and sometimes even an obsessive need know who was killed this time and was there a pattern. Or is it our subconscious need for macabre, after all, there are several TV shows and books that cater to the masses who love a good thriller. There is no end to the variety of crime shows that can satisfy our craving for murder, from Bones, NCIS, True Detective and Criminal Minds, an actual TV show about FBI profilers who catch serial killers that has been going strong for eleven seasons, if that’s not a hint for how much we enjoy a good murder I don’t know what is. One of the main reasons is that serial killers are to adults what horror movies are to children they’re different, entertaining in a normal every-day existence where we go to school, work or even vacation. That may sound callous but it’s true, they’re a guilty pleasure, similar to the people who enjoy Dr. Sandra Lee, aka Dr. Pimple Popper on Youtube. There is a fear based excitement when watching our favourite crime shows, enjoying the thrill as we viewers watch their favourite stars puzzle their way through an episode. Trying to discover who’s behind these crimes and why. However, these TV shows are so numerous that they have opened a new can of worms, making people much more suspicious of those around them.
There is also the darker more troubled reason why society studies and researches these individuals so carefully. There is an unconscious doubt inside everyone that feeds our need to know, our need to solidify the realization that we are nothing like them, that there is no way that we could do such a horrific thing to another human being. Fear is also a major motivator, due to making serial killers so integrated within pop culture, society has forgotten that they are so incredibly rare. Yet we’re so careful and even wary of people of the street, wondering if maybe they have some dark, terrible fantasy to kidnap someone and turn them into mincemeat. In all honesty, we’re more likely to get killed by global warming then some mass murderer but unfortunately, society seems to disagree.