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HelpRe: Sylvia
in reply to a message by irene
I've often had similar thoughts---that it's ghoulish and disrespectful to the victims to show interest in murder cases. I've even said that the media shouldn't talk about them, that they are nobody's business but the victim's family, the accused, and the family of the accused.
However, it is so common for people to have great interest in murder cases that I can't help but feel you're being a little hard on Paul here. I remember seeing an interview with Debra Tate, the sister of Sharon Tate, in which she said, "I can't stand the thought of people oogling over her death." I just had to laugh a little, not because I couldn't sympathize with the sentiment, but just because massive numbers of people had already been "oogling" over Sharon Tate's death for over thirty years by the time Debra made the comment. And also it seemed just so naive to think it could possibly be any different.
Authors have made livings by writing true crime books. They write them because they sell. We've all heard of Ted Bundy, haven't we? We've all heard about him because writers, both in the media and book authors, write about what people want to read. And the crime is always murder, they don't write books about insider trading. I think it's human nature. Yes, there's a lot of Schadenfreude in the interest, and Schadenfreude is not an attractive quality, but it's a very human quality.
I can understand you being turned off by true crime and hoping that no child of yours becomes an aficionado of it. My point is that I don't think Paul is that unusual or that much of a freak.
However, it is so common for people to have great interest in murder cases that I can't help but feel you're being a little hard on Paul here. I remember seeing an interview with Debra Tate, the sister of Sharon Tate, in which she said, "I can't stand the thought of people oogling over her death." I just had to laugh a little, not because I couldn't sympathize with the sentiment, but just because massive numbers of people had already been "oogling" over Sharon Tate's death for over thirty years by the time Debra made the comment. And also it seemed just so naive to think it could possibly be any different.
Authors have made livings by writing true crime books. They write them because they sell. We've all heard of Ted Bundy, haven't we? We've all heard about him because writers, both in the media and book authors, write about what people want to read. And the crime is always murder, they don't write books about insider trading. I think it's human nature. Yes, there's a lot of Schadenfreude in the interest, and Schadenfreude is not an attractive quality, but it's a very human quality.
I can understand you being turned off by true crime and hoping that no child of yours becomes an aficionado of it. My point is that I don't think Paul is that unusual or that much of a freak.
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i think there's an enormous difference in people taking an academic interest in it, and people who enjoy true crime as a fun hobby. especially when it comes to cases of young girls. i've seen many people online who eagerly bring up the facts of a child's murder as if it were a football game. who devote entire blogs to collecting as much information on the victims or killers, no matter how irrelevant to the case.
they can sometimes even lead to glamorizing the murderers- which is much more extreme of course, and i wouldn't lightly accuse someone if that, but they are often in vicinity to these people, they indirectly help these people pass as normal. i've seen it happen, it's imo one of the most serious issues with online culture.
my post was meant as a response to Paul's posts in general, which noel described in detail (i wasn't even aware of some of the worse ones, yikes).
(apologies for not seeing this response earlier).
they can sometimes even lead to glamorizing the murderers- which is much more extreme of course, and i wouldn't lightly accuse someone if that, but they are often in vicinity to these people, they indirectly help these people pass as normal. i've seen it happen, it's imo one of the most serious issues with online culture.
my post was meant as a response to Paul's posts in general, which noel described in detail (i wasn't even aware of some of the worse ones, yikes).
(apologies for not seeing this response earlier).
This message was edited 12/15/2018, 9:52 AM
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Paul's past posts and his motivation aside, that was my point, though. I agree with what you said about glamorizing the murderers, and having some distaste about true crime as a fun hobby, but very little of the interest is academic and it's quite common. In fact, I've been the one who's been made to feel like a freak for voicing the same sentiments that you are.
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Other things that are quite common yet considered distasteful include burping and misogyny. I wouldn't encourage either of those. I might defend burping as human and necessary, but if someone came up and burped right in my face repeatedly, I'd feel justified in saying "ew, please stop".
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The thing is, this isn't the first time Paul has posted about a young female murder victim in connection to a rather ordinary name on the opinions board. That, combined with some of his posts in the lounge (criticizing a little girl's clothes in a missing persons ad; a closeup pic of a preteen's butt, lamenting that it's not the type of thing one sees on TV nowadays) made this post strike me as creepy...why does Paul keep bringing up girls in this context? Yeah, interest in the macabre isn't uncommon, and there are lots of possible motivations for it, but I've gotten the impression he's fetishizing (and/or trolling, as mirfak said), and viewed through that lens, if anything, I think irene was overly nice.
This message was edited 12/13/2018, 11:49 PM
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thank you
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^Agree with all of this.
yeesh
yeesh
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