What's your perfect Valentine's day true crime playlist?
the true crime that's worth your time
Valentine’s day is arguably the most stickily manufactured of holidays. (God bless NPR for its “The dark origins of Valentine's Day” story, which recalls the feast of Lupercalia in bloody detail). None of us have a beef with love, affection, or romance, I’m sure — but I also think that anyone attracted to true crime the way we all are also has a healthy skepticism about any holiday that seems so focused on purchases of inexplicably valuable problematic rocks or lead and cadmium riddled treats.
The best way to have your Valentine’s cake and eat it too might be to program a day of true crime content that gives a nod to the holiday without buying into it, Hallmark-style. One might start the day with a love fraud podcast, to remind one’s self of how vulnerable society’s demand that we all be coupled can make us. Perhaps over lunch, a longread on an especially gripping blood diamond case. And this evening, a soapy triumph-over-stalking yarn based on real events (or so they claim) — a reminder that people who refuse to let you break up with them* aren’t romantic icons, they’re creeps.
That might be my dream holiday-themed playlist for a true crime-filled Feb. 14, but what about you? If you were programming a true crime Valentine’s Day, what properties would you line up to celebrate the holiday? —
*will risk all your wrath to say it again — Lloyd Dobler is a stalker, y’all