The Dahmer Series: Hot or Not?

It’s time we talked about the chokehold True Crime has over us. 

For two whole weeks of this year, Ryan Murphy’s ‘Dahmer series’ reigned as number one on Netflix, becoming the ninth most popular Netflix series of all time after 12 days.

Months after its release, people are still talking about it. 

It’s become somewhat normal to go up to some poor fella wearing thick framed glasses with a mop of blonde hair on a night out and tell them they look ‘just like Dahmer’, and Dahmer (for those that are unaware) is one of the most prolific and depraved serial killers and sex offenders that ever lived. He is known to have killed 17 men and boys over 13 years- going as far as to dismember his victims’ bodies and keep their remains. 

As we approach 2023, the team at Netflix are huddling together to scrape the barrel for the next ‘it girl’ of the serial killer genre to profit from. 

Before we mindlessly eat up the next teaser trailer, it might be time to invite some critical analysis into our consumerism.

True Crime has been a rising genre over the last decade – the first true crime venture to make its way to Netflix was Making a Murderer in 2015. It raked in 19.3 million viewers in just five weeks. The series mainly surrounded Steven Avery, who still maintains his innocence in the murder of Teresa Halbach. It aimed to give insight to the mind of a murderer.

The show can attribute such high engagement rates to a wildfire of social listeners who binge watched and tweeted about the show during the Christmas holidays. Celebs such as Alec Baldwin and Ricky Gervais live tweeted their thoughts on the series, giving the show plenty of exposure. 

Social binge watching has done the same favours for numerous other series over the years. We saw it with the Ted Bundy tapes, and now we’re watching it unfold with the Dahmer series.

The ten biggest grossing Netflix series have been grisly True Crime, so what does that say about our viewing habits?

We spoke to some experts in criminology and psychology to get a better idea of what impact these cinematic depictions of True Crime might be having on us. 

For the most part, research suggests that people consume True Crime purely out of fascination. 

Podcasts such as They Walk Among Us (2016) and My Favourite Murder (2016) exist purely to rate their broadcasters favourite murder cases. True crime Youtubers have well and truly dominated with hosts such as Glam and Gore, Kendall Rae, and Eleanor Neale candidly discussing the intricacies of someone’s decapitation while popping on a bit of blush. 

In 2019 a study conducted by a psychology professor at the University of Illinois showed that women are the main consumers of True Crime. One suggestion for its popularity comes from Dr Sharon Packer, who suggests women feel more vulnerable than men when it comes to rape and homicide. By consuming an immense amount of content relating to someone else’s experience, it might give the consumer a better chance of escaping or surviving an attack.

True Crime podcaster Shaun Attwood agrees, telling us that his content about crime in prison is consumed more by men, but he expects more of a female audience to flock to his channel when discussing murder.

The difference in approach between the Dahmer series and good old true crime podcasts is the way the story is told. 

Perhaps the storytelling element involved with podcasts and YouTube videos creates a buffer between consumer and murderer.

Someone is narrating the events of a crime in a way that (more often than not) lacks detail and focuses on the fascination of how someone could do such a thing, leaving less room for romanticisation.

With the viral spread of interest in cinematic crime series such as Dahmer- killers are developing fan bases across social media keen to discuss how ‘hot’ these murderers are- feeding into the glorification of killers. Adding insult to injury, a lot of these comments are delivered in a humorous way.

Twitter user @gcfins tweeted on 2nd November “Jeffery dahmer is extremely hot. I know. I was the wheelchair he was escorted on.”

In the same week, the user tweeted “ ‘jeffery dahmer went to my high school’, ‘i was in class w jeff’, i worked w dahmer’ WHY DIDN’T YOU KISS HIM THEN!? HUH?”

When did fancying killers become… funny?

Are we forgetting that they literally killed people? And that’s why they’re on screen in the first place?

This may be one of the first times people are sharing these opinions with their chest on twitter, but Dr Melanie Haughton, a lecturer in psychology at the University of Derby, reminds us that that some dramatic depictions have been less favourable. ‘Appropriate Adult’ and ‘Des’ (British productions) seemed to lean more towards the prosecution process and showed the darker side to these serial killers. 

“I think the recent Dahmer production attempted to look at the consequences of these heinous crimes by including victims, communities, people working on the cases. However, it focussed on ‘explaining’ Dahmer’s crimes. Therein lies a problem, it adds to the romance of them as ‘troubled souls’,” she said.   

Romanticizing that ‘troubled’ dodgy boyfriend you briefly dated at the age of 19 wouldn’t be so bad, but DAHMER?

“Fictitious accounts are probably the worst instances of romanticising serial killers. However serial killers are portrayed, it allows us to draw social comparisons which lead to us feeling morally favourable.”

Maybe this desensitisation comes from a slow disappearance of that consumer to murderer buffer. In cinematic depictions of crime, creators have the power to decide if their ‘movies’ are going to be based in fact. 

Ashundria Oliver, a PhD student from the University of Westminster (specialising in homicide and cold case investigations) tells us that although it’s problematic, “people have romanticised killers in the past because of media coverage in general”. 

Normalising the romanticisation of serial killers might lead to some very significant problems.  

When the Sarah Everard and Sabina Nessa cases were reported a couple of years ago, commentary would never have glamorised the perpetrators that ruined the lives of these victims and their families. 

“When it isn’t necessarily made clear that the work has been fictionalised, it could cause harm to the victims bereaved- and create a lot of drawbacks,” said Ashundria.

But what other problems might we face from digging up old death reports?

The Dahmer series was everywhere. Content creators figured they would get engagement by speaking about Dahmer, and as a result, coverage of the trial was beginning to resurface. Ashundria warns that people may learn how fragmented the criminal justice system can be and use the information out there to calculate what they can get away with.

While she draws the conclusion that True Crime is popular simply because of curiosity, a person’s obsession with the genre depends entirely on their wellbeing at their time of consumption. “Fascination with crime is a very individual thing, people take it in different ways depending on where they’re at. Are consumers curious because they want to solve the mystery… or is it something more sinister?” 

It’s pretty obvious that True Crime is not going anywhere anytime soon. There is a huge demand for it, and it can be used to both the benefit and detriment of society.

This could be a wake-up call to quit the mindless tweeting.

“I think information related to crime should always be available based in fact so people can learn about what happened.

Perhaps an ethical way forward would be to be abundantly clear that elements of the series have been fictionalised. 

Creators need to be careful because when it comes to victims its not just the individuals who have died at the hands of a killer… their families are considered victims of bereavement.”

As we await the next series, let’s be reminded not to gloss over the brutalities that have been inflicted at the hands of these murderers.

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