Dahmer Netflix Show: The Perverse Glamorization of True Crime

Across social media, you can find edits of Jeffrey Dahmer entering courtrooms, being interviewed by television journalists, and staring blankly at the camera in mug shots. Dahmer was one of the most prolific serial killers in history. He killed 17 men and ate some of them. 

This recent surge in Dahmer fandom is in large part due to the September release of the Netflix T.V. show Dahmer: Monster. Over 701.37 million hours of the show have been viewed globally. Whether or not the show attempted to, it has glamorized Dahmer in the eyes of teens around the world. 

Even at the School in recent weeks, I’ve heard students make incredibly gross jokes about Dahmer. A peer performed a disturbing and awkward skit in drama class, acting out the murder of one of Dahmer’s victims. The bottom line is that this recent Dahmer mania is distasteful and repulsive.

If you look beyond the Dahmer fans, you’ll find a world filled with users obsessed with serial killers and true crime. For example, one website specializing in true crime apparel sells shirts memorializing the likes of serial killers Charles Manson and Ted Bundy.  

The danger with glamorizing true crime is we begin to idealize and think of real-life murderers and criminals the way we think of the heroes of our fictional entertainment. 

Another reason that I believe the current fascination with Dahmer is atrocious is because it re-traumatizes the victims’ families. The sister of one of Dahmer’s victims wrote in an essay that watching the show “felt like reliving it all over again. It brought back all the emotions I was feeling back then.” The show forces the relatives of Dahmer’s victims to grapple with the popularity of their relative’s murderer and struggle with the trauma from his senseless acts of violence. 

When we watch true crime, we become desensitized to the terrible violence that is all too common in our world. We don’t watch this media because we are interested in the facts and the story but rather because our hyper-violent society has trained us to enjoy the spectacle of death. We also need to think of Dahmer’s victims. Almost all of Dahmer’s victims were queer men of color, whom were part of communities already disproportionately affected by violence. We watch these young people be murdered, dismembered, eaten, and violated on our screens. Are we not desensitizing and amplifying violence in our culture? 

Next time you sit down on the couch and turn on Netflix after a long day, consider the human cost of true crime: those who have to see their loved ones’ killers glorified and murder victims who are now mere plot points in a story. There are plenty of action films and shows out there that are entirely fictional. So why not make the ethical choice by not treating these true stories as entertainment?