0
0
by Aidan Inglish
Staff Reporter
Murder. What’s more interesting than that? Fifty-one percent of NS students surveyed consume true crime content. This shows how popular true crime is becoming, especially among students at NS.
True crime is a genre of content that focuses on true stories relating to crime, especially murders. This content can come in the form of podcasts, documentaries, YouTube videos, books and articles. YouTube videos are particularly popular, with forty-eight percent of the students surveyed consuming it that way.
YouTubers release this content in a variety of ways, whether that be just sitting down and talking about the cases, providing professional analysis on them or doing makeup while telling the stories.
“I like to watch the people who do their makeup at the same time,” said senior Helina Delbecq, “it just makes it not as heavy.”
There are many popular true crime content creators, such as the YouTubers Bailey Sarian and Kendall Rae, the “JCS” YouTube channel, the “Crime Junkie” podcast, and a variety of documentaries on Netflix, such as “Serial Killer” and “Forensic Files.”
According to health professionals, true crime can have a negative effect on students mentally by causing them to feel more anxious or sad due to the dark tendencies of the subject matter.
“I don’t think it affects me in the way that it makes me aggressive,” Delbecq said. “It just makes me sad. It’s hard to hear about all of the terrible things that have happened to people.”
It can also cause students to be more paranoid.
“Sometimes when you have to go outside, you’re like ‘Oh I’m gonna get kidnapped,’” said sophomore Cloe Jessop, “and then nothing happens, and you’re fine, but at the same time you’ve just got that thought in the back of your head of ‘someone’s going to come out and murder me in front of my own house!’”
Despite these negative effects, students listen to true crime content because they want to learn about how other people’s minds work, and the strategies they use.
“It’s interesting to see how some people use different tactics,” Jessop said. “Most of the time if a person is a murderer, they use a certain tactic that says, ‘Hey, I murdered this person, you still can’t find me though.’”
Students also like true crime because it also gives them a chance to learn about dangerous people in the world and how to react in certain situations.
“I think it’s cool to learn about what happens in our world that we don’t know about,” said freshman Trace Rees. “They teach you a lot about creepy people, what they do and how to avoid them. And to always carry pepper spray.”
Students discover their interest in true crime content through multiple ways, whether that be other family or friends, or it simply being recommended to them on social media. However, one thing these students commonly share is their interest in mystery in prior years.
“I think reading mystery novels has greatly influenced my love for true crime,” Delbecq said. “I grew up reading Nancy Drew and Sherlock Holmes. Just like those true crime cases that have never been solved, you know, they always intrigue me the most because like why, what evidence do we still need to solve it, and stuff like that.”
