Pretty much every crime documentary or series based on a true crime story, I'm just yelling at the tv cause it's always the cops and their complete lack of giving a fuck that lets the killers continue on. Especially if the victims are sex workers or gay men. Gay man gets brutally murdered by a serial killer, cops are like "probably a gay thing".
I hate people who are "fascinated" by serial killers. They are just emotionally stunted morons who get off to violating the social contract. There is nothing special about them.
I am fascinated by what causes a person to become that way. But I agree, I once read up on Manson cause you hear so much about him. Manson was a moron and a jackass, just a complete waste of a person, an utter loser, yet people talk about him like he's a genius. He's honestly so ordinary and unimpressive.
Yeah that's what I mean, whenever I get to know the personality of a serial killer they are not that different than all the narcissists I met throughout my life. Socially aloof, spiteful, childishly manipulative, ill tempered, and emotionally stunted. The only difference is that serial killers kill people, which to me all that indicates is that the person is missing some sort of social intelligence. So when I say they are not that special I'm saying that they are just your run of the mill narcissist who are extra stunted. All the same flavor of shitty human.
What causes a person to become a serial killer is brain damage, nothing more complicated than that.
It can be an issue during embryological development, the result of physical injury, or the result of extreme psychological distress. But at the end of the day, it's just brain damage.
I don't think it's unreasonable to be interested in people who act in really unusual ways that cause problems; exceptions are interesting, and threats to your survival are interesting. What bothers me is more the mystique and cool factor that gets applied to them. Interest is warranted, respect isn't.
Yeah my issue is that it often comes packed together. I go to these serial killer documentaries and I see comments praising the serial killers intellect or something stupid. And to your point, it's the mysticism that bothers me the most, these people are not that different than that shitty narcissist you personally know and hate, its just that they took up killing as a hobby. And here is my point, killing doesn't make them special, most people are capable of killing and governments normalize it all the time. It's shocking to us, sure, but for me it's no different than the narcissist that spends time screwing over people in other ways. In my eyes it's the same basic psychological mechanism at play.
I’m still waiting for a good corollary to movies like American Psycho, that instead of playing up any awesome feeling of these tilted psychos, exposes how pathetic and illogical they are.
No Country for Old Men came close when the woman rejected the coin toss.
Except that was the whole point of American Psycho. People miss the subtext (not that it's subtle) and think it's about glorifying Patrick Bateman, but the whole point is that he's pathetic and overestimates his own importance on every possible level.
I agree that people that see obviously evil protagonists as antiheros need to be given a reality check, but American Psycho is a weird film to use as an example of "glorifying psychos." Joker would have been a better example, IMHO.
Javier Bardem's role as Anton Chigurh is often cited as the best portrayal of as the most realistic move psychopathic killer in films. The extremely uncaring way Chigurh is shown is one of the defining features. Along with how he has no need for validation, he never does anything he doesn't have to and never lets anything distract him be it pretty girls or injury.
I am rather disturbed by people who are serial killer stans. I think that's the kind of people you're talking about.
And horrified by serial killers. But I am interested in understanding what factors create them and why they do what they do.
There is something special only in the sense that few people become so horrifically violent. But, obviously, they are severely fucked up monsters.
I primarily engage with the world by trying to understand as much as I can about how things work. For me, understanding and knowledge eliminate fear.
I wouldn’t say they are part of the social contract in the first place. I don’t think they are like a regular person who gets naughty feelings when they do something bad, like running a red light at a dead intersection at 3:00 am. They just don’t think like regular people at all, so to place the same motives onto them as normal people is kind of missing the point. They don’t even see the social contract, and don’t have awareness that they are violating it.
In a lot of interviews with these people they mention about how others are 'weak' or 'bound by social rules' or something along those lines, and flaunting these taboos is what make them feel special or 'superior' because their minds are free. It's always some variation of that. They know the social contract is there and they actively violate it. I've met plenty of people in real life that think like this (criminals), they think people are suckers, fools, or sheep and they deserve to be exploited.
If Fargo has taught me anything it's that the police departments of small towns in Minnesota always have at least one officer who is an absolute genius at finding serial killers.
Yeah but then you've got Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman/Gene Takovic believing everything the serial killer says at face value.
But then you get Ron Swanson heroically and drunkenly lawyering the German mob
Conversely, dramas where:
- Multiple murders happen in a small town with barely any police
- Suspect is gasp the police chief's son!
- Lots of intrigue very drama! How will we catch this killer? We are just small town cops!
Call the fucking FBI - that's their whole thing. I get rugged individualism but it's 2024, you've got phones, nearest field office is probably a few hours drive away, I'm sure they'd be happy to come help. It's not the 1840s anymore.
NO BIG-TIME FEDS ARE GOING TO TAKE OVER A CASE IN MY TOWN! I'M THE SHERIFF HERE!
After watching a video on how local police officers wrongfully arrested FBI agents and/or breaking undercover agents cover, I totally understood why they're stereotyped as having so much disdain to the local police force in the movies and TV series.
If there's anything true crime podcasts have taught me, it's that police imcompetence is not constrained to small towns.
Yes. Remember: About half of all murders in the United States are never solved. Only 52.3% are, to be exact:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/194213/crime-clearance-rate-by-type-in-the-us/
The rape clearance rate is even worse: 26.1%. And If your vehicle is stolen you have less than 1 in 10 odds that whoever did it will actually be caught. Doesn't that just make you feel all warm and fuzzy?
Sadly nobody ever wants to fund any of it... It would be nice if we could send DNA evidence to somewhere that doesn't have a 20 month backlog for felonious convictions 5 states away.
Say you want more money for LEO Diversion programs or behind the scenes stuff all you want, nobody just wants to pay taxes cause the vast majority of everyone is too poor already with swaths of them who refuse to do the one thing they could to help, which is vote lol.
Yes but how many 18 year olds are behind bars for life for weed?!?!
I rest my case me
I just saw a post about someone rejected for the police force for being too smart. I often wonder if we would catch a lot more criminals if cities hired much smarter people as detectives versus promoting from within the ranks.
This just made me rage at the Dexter reboot...... Greatest serial killer of all time... Evades Miami police force, FBI for decades..... And is taken down by some noname bumfuck cop in butthole nowhere....
It was an unfamiliar environment, and he wasn’t used to destruction as a body disposal method.
People who are excellent at what they do can still be thrown off by doing something in a new context.
When he was an actual beginner, he had beginner mind and was wracking his brain to think of everything. He unconsciously modeled that furnace as functionally equivalent to the ocean, which it wasn’t.
That's why you start on animals to make sure the new location and disposal method works. Keep those stakes low for the time being
In the context of serial killers, this is taken quite literally.
Who was the dude where the police showed up mid lobotomy and they let him go?
I think you're referring to Konerak Sinthasomphone, who was a victim of Jeffrey Dahmer who escaped. He was found by some people who called the police. Jeffrey Dahmer showed up gave them a story about him being his lover and convince them that Konerak was 19 years old. The homophobic police released the 14 year old boy back to Jeffrey.
Dhamer. One of his victims, a 14 year old boy, had escaped to the street bleeding and still drugged where he passed out. Neighbors called the cops for help. Dhamer came out and explained it away, and the 3 cops laughed at the gay guys having a spat. The cops and Dhamer took him back inside and after they left, dhamer killed him.
The witnesses kept telling them something was wrong, but they were all black. The cops and dhamer were all white and because he was courteous to the cops, they disregarded the witnesses, even when one of them called back days later when she saw the victims "missing" notice in the paper.
He went on to kill 5 more men before he was finally caught.
Dramas set post 2000 where they don't use cellphones
