Unpopular opinion: I hate cutesy, “comedic” true crime podcasts
“Stay sexy and don’t get murdered!” This is the slogan of My Favorite Murder, one of the true crime podcast world’s most popular shows. I have to ask: fucking seriously?
I’m not asking MFM’s hosts--comedians Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstock—to justify their sign-off. I’m also not asking them to defend the “humorous” true crime podcast industry, which has many (MANY) different podcasts, most of which appear to be hosted by white women who make jokes of varying levels of hilarity in between providing their listeners with the gruesome details of real cases.
It’s common knowledge at this point that humor is subjective. As a writer and internet comedian myself, I also have my pet subjects that I am overly invested in, such as the Heaven’s Gate cult (thanks, neurodivergence!). I remain a committed hater of the “funny” true crime podcast genre, where gory details of victims’ lives are mined while the hosts chat and make quips. I’m not averse to reading books or listening to podcasts about bad stuff happening--if said bad stuff is treated with basic humanity and sensitivity. There are some podcasts that do this well, including You’re Wrong About, Scam Goddess, Weird Little Guys, and Behind the Bastards. You can make jokes while discussing awful things, it’s true! However, I’ve never been able to get through an episode of a “funny” true crime podcast without thinking: what if the hosts of this podcast were talking about me?
Of course, if I were dead, I wouldn’t care if I was the subject of a podcast episode, because I’d be dead. But suppose that two women who make bank on Patreon for laughing about murder decided to “investigate” my case in a multi-part episode, complete with the least convincing Mint Mobile/Better Help/Squarespace ad reads ever recorded. Would listeners chuckle at the details of my unremarkable pre-murder life? Would they buy t-shirts featuring a quip from one of the hosts about my disabilities, gender identity, or the way I was killed? Would my family and friends’ responses to my brutal death be scrutinized by the podcast hosts, or picked apart in amateur sleuth Facebook groups? Would my death be the subject of an entertaining panel or live podcast episode recorded at CrimeCon? The more I consider comedic true crime podcasts in this way, the grosser I find the whole industry.
Some true crime podcast hosts make their living with said podcasts, and while I don’t begrudge anyone’s career choices, I do feel the need to cast an enormous fucking side-eye at people who think it is totally cool to present some of the worst shit imaginable—other people getting killed, assaulted, traumatized, or otherwise harmed—as fun content that is both (supposedly) educational for an audience of well off, slightly paranoid white women and “valuable” because it illuminates victims’ stories. True crime podcast hosts’ tendency to spend time making jokes about those stories, or going off on personal tangents, is apparently all in good fun. So light! So fun! If comedic true crime podcasts allow fans to relax or blow off steam…well, it’s not my job to tell anyone what to listen to, but I still find the fandom strange.
My major beef is not with the fans, though—it’s with comedic true crime podcasts presenting material that should be taken seriously as fodder for the hosts to laugh and joke about, regardless of how well-researched the scripts are. I am not suggesting that true crime podcasts return to the reenactment-laden cheese of late 1990s and early 2000s broadcast network shows like Dateline and 20/20; in terms of taking the experiences of crime victims and survivors seriously, those shows might not have been much better. But what is up with much of the genre’s reduction of serious shit to something fun?
It's true that humor can help people face tough issues; as someone who has been through some stuff, gallows humor has helped me get through bad days. The difference is that I tend to make dark jokes about things that I have personally experienced. I’m not convinced that joking about murder, treating stories about serial killers like parasocial gossip fodder, or competing to see which host can make the edgiest jokes will destigmatize difficult issues. I also don’t think a light approach will change the systemic issues surrounding crime, including racist police brutality, the prison-industrial complex, and punitive laws that give lengthy prison sentences to people (mostly people of color) for non-violent offenses.
My guess is that it’s probably easier to focus on individual murder cases or other incidents of violent crime than on systemic issues in an hourlong podcast episode—not to mention easier to joke about. “Stay quippy and don’t think about it too hard,” right?
I agree with you. I think a lot of true crime content in any medium is geared toward people who are afraid of what's happening in the world and want to either make light of perceived threats (whistling in the dark) or convince themselves they are not under threat ("I would simply not go into the dark because I own several valuable flashlights").
Omg yes I hate it!