Digging your own grave with true crime media

From hauntingly intriguing podcasts to YouTube videos and documentaries, true crime content is widely available. Eerie thumbnails and curiosity about the sinister motivation has cultivated a sizable audience, which has sparked discussion about if true crime content is morally wrong to consume and especially make. 

Often, true crime reporters will disclaim to their audiences that their content is purely for entertainment and awareness purposes only. However, the public’s shock seems to dwindle from these videos. An immensely popular youtube creator, Bailey Sarian, continues to face a lot of backlash from people who find her content problematic and crass. Multiple comments on Sarian’s social media posts catch her lightly chuckling as she describes whichever harrowing story she is telling. In most of Sarians videos, she retells the situation in a very light hearted manner, all while cracking subtle jokes. However, if you can bring yourself to laugh about a detail in the story where someone loses their life, the excuse that it is for “awareness” purposes completely goes out the window.

However, she is not the only one, she just has compiled the largest audience. The biggest critique with these creators, specifically Sarian in this context, is that they often forget that these were real people, with lives and families who were tragically affected by their murder. As many content creators are so detached from these tragic situations, it becomes easy to speak on it lightly. However, that should not be the case for someone telling a tragic story with millions of listeners, and when wondering about how many creators actually give back to the families of victims and share the story in an honorable way, it’s close to none. Yazabeth Baza (’26) shares one of the most prominent examples of unethical behavior in the true crime industry.

“When you consider the recent Dahmer series, many victims' families said they didn’t want the series to happen, yet it happened anyways. It’s just disrespectful. It’s especially disrespectful when victims of the families explicitly said they don’t want to be seeing this,” Baza said. 

There are subgenres within this, including “true crime mukbangs” in which people eat while speaking about the crime. Sarian enjoys sharing her makeup routine amidst the story telling. It should be apparent that cracking jokes, eating food or doing a makeup tutorial while talking about someone's death is purely apathetic. Content creator, Tarrah Kristine, shares her opinion on Sarian and true crime content in general. 

“I used to be a fan of Bailey’s, and all true crime, until I witnessessed my own friend get murdered. It hurts seeing all these channels dissect people's lives and only focus on the person