Why are humans so obsessed with serial killers? Why do we hold a particular morbid fascination with the dark, creepy, and homicidal? Is it in our genes? Are we, as homo sapiens, prone to aggression and violence due to our genes? Did our ancestors make us this way? Was it the various serial killer movies we watch? It's a mystery.
Serial killers have become major players on the public stage and in the media since the 1970s. The great prevalence of serial killers in popular culture indicates that murder sells. Exaggerated depictions of serial killers in the mass media have blurred fact and fiction. As a result, real-life killers such as Jeffrey Dahmer and fictional ones like Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter have become interchangeable in the minds of many people.
When you bring up the name of an infamous real-life predator such as Jack the Ripper or Ted Bundy in conversation with a group of people, some people actually become gleeful in their demeanor when discussing them. Why is that?
In many ways, serial killers are for adults what monster movies are for children—that is, scary fun! It’s that train wreck, car crash sort of thing, where you don’t want to look but you do anyway. It’s something we call ‘wound culture’. We’re drawn to the trauma and suffering of other people and there’s an awful lot of that around serial murder.
The serial killer represents a lurid, complex and compelling personality. There appears to be an innate human tendency to identify or empathize with all things — whether good or bad — including serial killers.
It could be due to the fact that our brain wants to know more. Curiosity is simply our brain trying to remove uncertainty, so when we are exposed to people who flaunt society’s norms we want to know more about why they are doing so. This could explain why we, as a society, are so obsessed with knowing who died, how and why.
Maintaining a casual fascination with serial killers is macabre, but it may actually have psychological benefits for the obsessive. At the very least, you’ll never be totally surprised if someone tries to kill you.
We are fascinated by serial killers because we want to be scared by monsters, but what we find is far scarier, and it is what we keep trying to understand but never will: we find people, just like us.
