The Cold, Curious Consolation of True Crime Podcasts
My wife and myself have a ritual when it comes to television. At the end of a long, exhausting day, we’ll sit down to watch TV and she’ll want to watch something involving women in prison or children being abused and I’ll want to watch something less soul-crushingly depressing.
It’s not that I don’t like true crime: I just don’t like documentaries or docu-series about child abuse or incarceration. I find them depressing.
I’ve always liked true crime that does not involve children in peril or adult incarceration. I am only human and there’s something about innately compelling about the terrible misfortune of others. That’s why true crime is such a huge market: we are all hopeless voyeurs endless fascinated by the murders, lies and betrayals.
But I have recently gotten into true crime podcasts in a big way. I am voracious and undiscriminating in my consumption of true crime podcasts. It’s not that unusual for me to discover a new true crime podcast and think, “Wow, this kind of sucks. They don’t really seem to know what they’re doing but that’s no reason for me to stop listening!”
If a true crime podcast is done well it’s well-written, sensitively and exhaustively reported, unbiased and hits the exact right tone of thoughtful, principled examination. That’s why Serial was not just a successful true crime podcast but a bona fide pop culture phenomena.
It was a true crime podcast with class that allowed everyday Americans to become unhealthily invested in the lives of teenagers without feeling like creeps. Serial was NPR so it had public radio prestige.
It’s a tricky thing talking about murder and deceit without coming off as exploitative, glib and inconsiderate, like someone who gets their sick kicks sorting fetishistically through the crimes of complete strangers.
I’ve been delving deep into the world of true crime podcasts as a way of fighting Depression. One of the many things that I like about true crime is that it is a world that is thankfully far removed from my everyday life.
I listen to bad movie podcasts like We Hate Movies and The Flop House because they’re great and hilarious and I love the hosts and their chemistry but also because the world of bad movies is one I know intimately.
It’s my world, my community, my turf. I don’t just listen to bad movie podcasts: I have a bad movie podcast of my own in Travolta/Cage, although that’s both a bad movie podcast and a great movie podcast, since it’s about all of Travolta and Cage’s movies, the good, bad and the ugly.
I similarly feel very invested in the world of comedy. I wrote for the entertainment section of The Onion for 18 years and many of my friends are funny people, professionally, so when I listen to a comedy podcast it feels warm and familiar.
I am pleased to say, however, that I have never had a family member go missing or be murdered. I’ve never known that kind of pain and trauma in my own life. I’ve only experienced them through art and entertainment.
Listening to true crime podcasts, I feel a combination of deep empathy for the suffering souls who have lost loved ones to the free-floating darkness, violence and madness that characterizes American life and relief that I have been spared that kind of agony.
I might wrestle with Depression and anxiety and worry about money and professional success and my children’s health, safety and happiness but I could be dealing with even more severe problems.
There’s a cold comfort in true crime podcasts, a curious consolation in knowing that as bad as things get, it could always be much worse.
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