I've been doing research into True Crime Media, lately. It has nothing to do with this blog, it's just research for a story that I'm working on. But, when it comes to this blogpost, I'm actually starting from the twist and working backwards. Because, the reason I'm doing my research is because I learned a few years ago that the main demographic for true crime... is women.
And when I say the main demographic is women, I'm not just saying that there's quite a few women who like true crime podcasts, or that more women watch documentaries on average.
According to Scott A. Bonn Ph.D.,a long-time true crime author and researcher, 80% of the True Crime audience is Female - and he saw it firsthand during a speaking tour to promote his books where he visited over a dozen states across America.
Nancy Jo Sales, an award-winning journalist and writer, adds that the popularity of true crime podcasts rose in 2014, and she points out that the popularity of true crime podcasts and shows rose at the same time that online dating became incredibly popular.
According to Amelia Anthony, who wrote her senior thesis on true crime podcasts, 75% of listeners to True Crime podcasts are women. So, whilst at first, I thought it may have just been word-of-mouth, a persistent rumour or just a surprisingly large minority, three-quarters of the true crime audience identifies as female.
Some of the surprise certainly comes from gender politics. The feminine ideal is that women are "cute, fragile and pretty", they're meant to be "emotional" and "motherly" with a "delicate constitution", so the idea of millions of women enjoying horrendous tales of the mentally disturbed engaging in cold-blooded murder, aggravated rape, extensive torture, mutilation, cannibalism, molestation and worse doesn't make a lot of sense. Of course, this is a blatant exaggeration based on stereotype and cultural sexism, but I do think it explains people's surprise when they learn for the first time that so many women enjoy true crime; they never would assume that women would like something so horrific.
But, what it doesn't explain is the actual numbers. Surely, if women are consistently the main audience, then there must be something about being a woman that makes true crime so attractive?
Bonn's theory is that women have an "empathetic nature", and so they empathize with the victims who are (more often than not) women themselves, and want to learn how to empathize with (more often than not) male criminals, so they can understand them and learn to identify "red flags", so they can stay safe. Whilst I would hesitate before telling an entire gender what their "nature" is, especially when I'm not a part of it, there is a clear correlation here.
When it comes to crimes against women, there are some worrying trends. In Australia, women are three times more likely to be physically assaulted by a family member or intimate partner; five times more likely to be sexually assaulted. And whilst it is true that men are twice as likely to be murder victims, accounting for two-thirds of murder victims, murderers are also five times as likely to be male—and in those cases where women killed men, in two-out-of-three of such cases, it was a woman retaliating against her male abuser.
[Editor's Note: Before moving on, I want to be clear that whilst these numbers can be confronting, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, less than 2% of people, male and female, experience physical assault, and these numbers are going down. I still think that number is too high, but my point is that I'm not trying to scaremonger. You're more likely to flip a coin and get Heads five times in a row.]Sales agrees that women are more concerned about violence than men, and she says that dating is already a risky proposition, but the growing popularity of online dating—and meeting a strange men online, who they have no knowledge about—has exacerbated those fears.
Sales makes a valid point, and I don't think you should ignore what she has to say, but I feel it would be intellectually dishonest not to mention that "the dangers of online dating" is one of Ms Sales hot topic issues—she has written two books about the social media and dating apps, at least 22 different articles about the dangers of social media, especially online dating, and she appears to have written and directed a documentary about the negative impact that online dating has on relationships. I'm not saying that her opinion is invalid, far from it, she makes a valid point that the increasing distance our society has placed its citizens within thanks to online spaces, which has a tendency to increase interpersonal anxieties.
However, the correlation she has drawn between the popularity of true crime podcasts and dating apps... I fear is also the exact same correlation between online shopping and MMORPGs; I fear she's made a spurious correlation and failed to notice that the growing popularity of the internet in general is the lurking variable in this case.
Anthony suggests that the popular theory of "women are scared, and use true crime to train themselves for violence", whilst it has truth to it, it does ignore the fundamental aspect that true crime is entertaining—it's telling a story, and most true crime has more than one host, so the audience can empathize with a fellow listener, just as disturbed or frustrated by a crime as them. And I see some accuracy in that... after all, if women simply enjoyed seeing gruesome crimes, especially in America they'd be just as interested watching the news.
But true crime often packages true crime into a narrative, with built-in conflict and a beginning, a middle and an end. Not to mention, women's fascinating with crime is not new. In fact, according to Melanie McGrath, an author and fellow writer for the Guardian, women also make up 80% of readers (and authors) of crime fiction—or untrue crime, if you will—from whodunnits to crime thrillers, more women than men like stories of crime and mystery, and many people are aware of the most famous whodunnit authoress, Agatha Christie.
And lastly, there's me. What do I think? Well, I think there may well be another cause. See, of the podcasts I've listened to, and the YouTube videos I've watched, unless it's spreading outright mistruths, either by misstating the facts in the case or, much worse in my eyes, delving into pseudoscience and superstition (seriously, it's frustratingly common for true crime to overlap with conspiracy or even ghost stories, which are a severe, personal pet peeve of mine). I too have very much enjoyed the true crime that I've been consuming.
But, it's not because of my feminine side... I find it's because of my anxiety. I suffer from chronic anxiety, as I've mentioned innumerable times throughout this blog. One of the ways that I alleviate that anxiety is through knowledge, and perhaps even exposure. I find great comfort in taking a concept that I find concerning, and tearing it to pieces, parsing it out and putting it back together in a way that I can understand it more thoroughly - just as I did in my two-parter on war crime. I didn't understand it, but now I feel that I do. I can't speak for how women alleviate their fears (and based on the worrying number of times that women seem to think "never let killers out of prison" or "listen to psychic warnings" and other magical thinking and pseudoscience, will solve their issues, I fear that many of them are less worried about the right answer as the right now answer), but it's a fact that women are twice as likely to be diagnosed with Anxiety, in some form or another. I can't help but wonder if it's no coincidence that in every podcast that I've listened do, the hostesses often express that they have struggled with mental health issues at some point.
So, am I right? Well, I think I'm probably right for some women. The real answer won't be an easy one. After all, we're talking about millions of people. Women (and their feminine-expressing sisters) are not a monolith, I don't think you can tar them all with the same brush. I think I'm partially right, and I think that everyone else is partially right, just as I think we're all partially wrong as I'm sure there's multiple exceptions that prove these rules. The only think I know for sure is that, for some women, true crime is stranger than crime fiction.
I'm the Absurd Word Nerd, and if you haven't listened to true crime before, whether male or female, maybe give it a watch, a listen, or even a read. Of course, there will be some triggering topics for those of you who need time to prepare for such things, so you should always be careful when it comes to your mental health. But, I'll end this where I began. I've been doing research on true crime for a story that I'm working on and the reason why is because I believe the best way to find out what all the fuss is about, when it comes to any form of media, is to check it out for yourself.
Until Next Time, stay sexy, and don't get murdered...
