I absolutely love the true crime genre. As of right now, I have diversified the shows I watched, but for a solid chunk of time, the only genre–book-wise, television, and any other media source–the genre was true crime. I know that some people may call people who like this genre are a little psycho for being interested in how others get murdered or go missing, but I promise it's not because I want to become one of the criminals. It's because I feel sorry for the victims and human curiosity gets the best of me. Apparently, it gets the best of a lot of people because there is a whole television channel dedicated to true crime - "Investigation Discovery."
I became "obsessed," although I don't like to use that word loosely because as everyone else like myself knows, it is a word commonly used in the genre. It is usually used to describe the desire some serial criminals get about chasing some of their victims. I'll use the word captivated instead. I became captivated with true crime when I moved to Texas my senior year of high school.
It was in the middle of summer, in a completely different environment than I was used to. It was too hot to walk around a lot, I hadn't met anyone new yet, and the only thing I could do was watch the basic television hookup we had before we got settled in and got connected to Wi-Fi.
The only interesting t.v. show to watch was "Forensic Files" on HLN. The narrator Peter Thomas was smooth and as much as it is sometimes monotone, it made me interested in all these true crime cases. Yes, some of the episodes are a little dated because the show has been on since 1996, so the graphics are awful, but the stories and the people are real.
Once the internet got set up, I binge-watched all the "Forensic Files" there are on Netflix. Netflix doesn't contain all of them, because that archive would be huge, it has collections of the most watched, or highest rated episodes. I then needed more. I needed to watch more crimes, and become more paranoid about myself in certain situations. So, I began to watch Investigation Discovery with shows such as "A Crime to Remember" which is Emmy-award winning, "Wives with Knives," "Obsessed," and "Nightmare Next Door."
I just could never get enough.
Last year, I began to read true crime novels such as "Helter Skelter" and anything written by Ann Rule. This year the captivation halted for a little while but then I got introduced to podcasts by my Aunt Jennifer. It was the only thing I listened to in the car for months. It was what I listened to when I did my makeup, when I got ready for work or for school, or when I was relaxing and coloring in my adult coloring books. I listened to two-hundred and seventy-five episodes within two months. That is equivalent to eleven days at the minimum amount of one hour an episode, whereas some go over and the majority of them reach an hour.
I love true crime. Every gritty detail makes me more interested in the crimes and the people. It comes with a price because when I'm in my apartment alone, I tend to get a little scared more easily than when my roommate is here or when I'm sleeping at my folks' house. But I would not give up my "obsession" for any other genre. The forensics are interesting - the science captivates me, the people captivate me, everything about true crime interests me. It also tugs on my heartstrings because it gets you thinking, "How can people be so evil?" But it also opens your mind to how awful people can be and how cautious you need to be in every day life.
