Sounds Like A Cult - The Cult of True Crime

Episode Date: May 24, 2022

From voraciously consuming gruesome podcasts by the dozen to amateur sleuthing gone wrong to fetishizing dangerous killers, the world of true crime definitely has a cult following… but does it ever go too far? This episode was chosen by our listener giveaway winner and features New York Times true crime columnist and author Sarah Weinman to discuss the good, bad, and the culty of fanatical true crime fandom. (P.S. Amanda and Isa have newfound respect for true crime podcasters… turns out, violent butcherings are easy enough to listen to, but almost impossible to talk about in public without wanting to puke a wee bit.) (P.P.S! In honor of Sounds Like A Cult's one-year anniversary, we're hosting our very first ever live show! It's virtual, meaning anyone from anywhere in the world can attend. On June 15th at 9 pm ET, join Isa and Amanda to ask questions, play games, hear us talk about never-before-discussed cults, and dive into alllllll other things culty. Details and ticket info can be found at momenthouse.com/soundslikeacult) Go to DailyHarvest.com/cult for up to forty dollars off your first box! Get Honey for FREE at JoinHoney.com/CULT

Hi, Amanda. Hi, Ysat. Thank you guys so much for picking me to be your giveaway winner. I am so excited to be included on the podcast. The reason that I suggested the cult of true crime is that I am in the cult of true crime and I have been for a long time. So I would just love to hear what you guys have to say about this cult and if I can live my life, watch about that or if I have to GTFO. Thanks guys. This is Sounds Like a Cult, a show about the modern-day cult we all follow. I'm Amanda Montell, author of The Book Closest, The Language of Fanaticism. I'm Issa Medina and I'm a comedian. Every week on our show we discuss a different fanatical fringe group from the cultural zeitgeist, from MLMs to marathon runners, to try and answer the big question.

This group sounds like a cult, but is it really? To join our cult and see culting memes and behind the scenes pics, follow us on Instagram at SoundsLikeACultPod. I'm on Instagram at Issa Medina, I-S-A-A-M-E-D-I-N-A-A. And I'm on Instagram at Amanda Underscore Montell and feel free to check us out on YouTube or hit us up on Patreon where you can listen to our show at free at patreon.com slash sounds like a cult. Today's episode is sponsored by Daily Harvest, one of our favorite food brands. I just had their overnight oats this morning for breakfast. Go to dailyharvest.com slash cult for up to $40 off your first box. That's dailyharvest.com slash cult for up to $40 off your first box. Today's episode is sponsored by Honey. If you don't already have Honey,

you could be straight up missing out on saving money. It's literally free and installed in a few seconds. Get Honey for free at joinhoney.com slash cult. That's joinhoney.com slash cult. Sounds like a cult is turning one year old. Yay, we're so excited. And we're going to throw a one year anniversary party with Moment House. It's our first ever live show. It is virtual, which means anyone from anywhere in the world can join. This is happening on June 15th at 9pm ET. You can join myself and Amanda to ask questions, play games, hear us talk about never before discussed cults, and dive into all things culty. Details can be found at www.momenthouse.com slash sounds like a cult. Now let's get to this week's topic, which I've been racking my brain

on how to introduce in a funny way. How to make it funny. How to make murder funny. People do it. People actually do it all the time. People do it and people love it. Comedian Liza Trager has a podcast called That's Messed Up Pod where they analyze the episodes on SVU. Oh my god. And the cases, they make it funny. Yeah, it is pretty stunning how much our culture automatically understands that the darkest crimes imaginable, they do hold humor, gallows humor in them. Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of like real life, you know. Life imitates art and when people ban abortion, you just have to laugh about it. Yes, right. No, comedy is a defense mechanism. Yeah. And we defend ourselves from the horrors of crimes and death and destruction with the little haha. Yeah,

yeah, exactly. With the little haha. I mean, that's what this podcast is founded on too. Yeah, exactly. We sometimes chortle about cult like abuse. Chortle? What the fuck does that mean? It's one of my favorite synonyms for laugh alongside guffaw. How do you spell guffaw? G-U-F-F-A-W. You make me guffaw. Oh, thank you. Oh, that sounds like when your heart laughs. It's like oh fuck. Oh, okay. That's not what I was thinking. I was thinking like guffaw. I think I was just like exorcised. Yeah, y'all was that. I'm glad I made you guffaw. I really needed that. Okay, Amanda is crying. Subscribe on YouTube to check it out. Anyway, today we're talking about the Cult of True Crime, if we hadn't yet mentioned. Yeah, we are, which is

the episode that one hour giveaway. Yeah, we posted a giveaway recently where we offered the opportunity for one of our listeners to choose our topic for the week. And this idea from underscore avocado was randomly selected. Yeah, pumped. Yeah, we are pumped. And we are doing it sooner than expected because it is such a large topic. So we want to do it justice. So just why I, it's going to be a two parter. And I feel like you have to make that disclaimer because the Cult of True Crime fans is so zealous that if we fail to touch on one of their favorite aspects of it or on an aspect that they find to be really important, they're going to riot. So we've got to do two parts. Yeah, in a good way. We love a riot. I mean, I'm going to a march tomorrow

because I love abortion. Just kidding. I'm pro choice. But yeah, yes, me too. We love, yeah, no, we love when people protest even at us. Yeah, exactly. Speak up. To start off, I think we want to kind of give a background on true crime. Like, when did it start? Where did it come from? We're going to dive a little bit deeper into the history of true crime with our very special guest who we're going to be hearing from in a few minutes. She's a true crime reporter for the New York Times. But in the meantime, let's start in slightly more recent history, talk about the modern boom of true crime, which was around the 80s, would you say? Yeah, it kind of began in the 80s alongside the 24 hour news cycle when that started to become a thing because they had that

saying if it bleeds, it leads, right? It's scary. Yeah, which is scary, but that's how they started to get viewers attention to watch 24 seven because when you run out of things to talk about, you have to start looking locally. Oh, it was the OG clickbait. Exactly. You know that people are going to rubber neck at violent crime stories. Yeah, I think in the beginning, the people who were interested in true crime didn't really like know it was true crime. They were just like, what are these stories? And they were so intrigued. It wasn't a whole genre yet. It wasn't a cult yet. Exactly. It wasn't a cult. It wasn't a genre. And then people started to realize that it really garnered attention. So I think they were like, okay, how do we make this highbrow storytelling?

And I think that boom happened in the 2010s, really led by the podcast Serial and how to make a murder. I remember when those came out, I felt kind of sad because my favorite podcast was always Radiolab Science Podcast. And a lot of people discovered podcasts through Serial. Yeah, I literally that was the first podcast I ever heard of. Yes. And I was just like, what about Radiolab? Did your parents make you listen to Radiolab? No, no, I found it. I found it on a road trip. I just like picture you being like a little bit like Matilda, like making pancakes, like listening to Radiolab. Thank you so much. So yeah, Serial, how to make a murderer started to create this like more highbrow content that was more sort of storytelling. And then of course,

my favorite murder came along and garnered a huge audience. Oh, and we know that some of our listeners found us because we got a little teeny tiny mention on my favorite murder. Yeah. Yeah. Shout out to those listeners. We love you. We love you. We love them. My favorite murder ladies. We feel blessed by the true crown gods. Yeah. And then the interest in that really led to it being put back on TV, but in a more produced way with documentary series, documentary features, and then the ultimate zeitgeist scripted adaptation. The scripted adaptations. Yeah. And you know, the community surrounding my favorite murder, they call themselves the fan cult. They really do. They are obsessed with not just the storytelling, but the storytellers.

They're like all looking in on these stories together and a real community has built up around it. Yeah, because it's not just about the stories, but it's like literally how they're told. Absolutely. And I think there are psychological drives that allowed true crime to earn such a cult following. I mean, they're not unlike the psychological drives that motivate people to become obsessed with cults like me. Yeah. It's partially rubbernecking. Like we're scanning to tell whether or not these stories are a direct threat to us. Yeah. So it's not just psychological voyeurism. It's not just that we have like some twisted freak inside us all who's inexplicably attracted to darkness. Like we are on some level scanning for threats. We want to

protect ourselves and we want to ingest as many of these stories as possible to learn as much as we can about these victims so that we don't become one of them. And we're also so obsessed with good evil binaries, the murderer and the victim. Society loves a binary. We do in every context. Do you should we should we talk about bisexuality again? Love a binary. It all comes back to it. But also, you know, we can sort of like rehearse our anxieties about certain things like being murdered. I mean, I think there's a reason why true crime is a genre that's particularly popular among women. It's because like, you know, being abducted is a very real fear of a lot of women in this culture. And if we can continuously watch these stories and listen to these stories and read

these stories, then we can rehearse how we would respond in those moments. Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like there's two reactions to it. It's like one, you're like, because you watch the stories and listen to the story so much, you're like, oh, like you fictionize it. Is that a word? Yeah, you fictionalize it. Fictionalize it so like you don't think it'll happen to you. That's right. Or the other side of that pendulum is that you are old truck prepared for when it does happen to you. Yes, like you fancy yourself a detective or, you know, a member of law enforcement. And we'll talk about sometimes when that goes a little bit too far. The different parts of the cult of true crime. Yes, the different extremes. Yeah. I think though, the thing that took true crime into

the next level in today's society is social media. Of course. Because as you were mentioning, it's something that you can really consume and you're an audience member in when you're consuming these stories and when you're listening to the content. But I think social media created a space where like people can interact with each other. You're also a participant. Yeah. All of a sudden, you're joining communities and making friends and like, I don't know, people are becoming like little detective. Yeah, little vigilantes. Yeah. And because we have things like overconfidence bias, you know, these biases that tell us that we know more than we do and that we're more expert than we are. We like to think that we have the ability to solve these cases better than others. And also,

we crave a happy ending, right? Yeah. And happy ending in the context of true crime is a solved case and we want to be a part of that happy ending. Yeah. I feel like sometimes like the government gaslights like true crime heads into thinking like they're not competent, but sometimes like the government isn't competent either. Oh, 100%. So I do kind of like that like true crime heads. I don't know if that's like a term. Yeah. But like true crime culties like they have been challenging law enforcement and federal authorities on like, do your job or like, we're going to do it for you. Oh, it's true. There are so many problems in law enforcement. But this like sets up the perfect conditions for a cult to emerge because when there are

institutional problems, whether it's in law enforcement or recovery spaces or healthcare or religion, that makes way for alternative fringe groups to sweep in and being like, I have the new answer. I have the real answer. Yeah. And sometimes that works for good, but sometimes certain leaders and certain figures can come in and take it to an a various extreme. As you guys know, true crime is like one of those cults or subject matters that have like different tiers of people that belong to it. Yes. So we want to talk about the three main ways true crime obsession manifests. The first one, people who think of themselves to be detectives and want to solve the crimes. Yes. There are so many communities

of amateur sleuthing on Reddit. One is called Unsolved Mysteries. There are 1.5 million members. And then there's another one called the Reddit Bureau of Investigation, which has over half a million members. And they fancy themselves like, you know, people who are solving these cases without any background. Yeah. That's the first tier of people, which can be dangerous. Yeah. In 2013, after the Boston Marathon bombing, Sleuths on Reddit tried to identify the perpetrator, but ended up misidentifying several innocent people instead. So there can be like serious repercussions of that sort of thing. Yeah, that that could ultimately lead to like true crime carons. It's like people who are accusing people who they don't know for sure to be guilty. And

that could like derail someone's life. Totally. And we'll talk a little bit about the problematic race dynamics in the true crime space as well. Yeah. The other kind of people that are obsessed with true crimes are people who have an unhealthy obsession, specifically with serial killer themselves or the person who does the crime. Oh, remember when we brought up the term Hybristophilia on an old episode, is that fetish for dangerous criminals? Yeah. I did not know that word and I had forgotten about it. Here it comes back again. Yeah. The way that Reddit is a headquarters for amateur sleuthers, Tumblr seems to be a headquarters for people who are obsessed with these serial killers in an almost fetishistic way. And some Tumblr users have

claimed to be so obsessed that they'll talk about like threatening to commit awful crimes themselves like in their image. Yeah, this category of people can have dangerous implications, you know, because it's like that gives like cult leader vibes. Like the killer is kind of the cult leader. And it's like if people become obsessed with that person, like to a serious degree, like, yeah, they might take action for them. And it's also become creepily common for young women in these Tumblr true crime communities to romanticize people who've committed crimes like Ted Bundy and also the Mansons. I mean the Manson. Charles Manson has almost this like stylish vintage cachet to him, you know. He really does. I always forget he's a horrible person. Oh yeah,

no, because we romanticize him. There's apparently a Tumblr forum called Serial Killers Aren't Sexy, which estimated that 30% of Tumblr true crime is true crime heads. If anyone knows what true crime stands are called, please let us know. Yeah. Who estimated that 30% of the community had a general or academic interest in crime, but the other 70% were glamorizing these killers? I feel like the glamorizing must start as a joke. A lot of people like when Putin came out to like talk to the stadium full of people in Russia, he was wearing like a really chic jacket and some people were like, wow, Putin looks so good. But obviously, because he's a horrible person, I mean, we don't really care what Putin's wearing. He's a deranged fascist and war criminal. And sometimes

the only thing we can really do is laugh about it. Yeah. Oh God, I don't know. Maybe some people do, but I feel like a lot of it starts with that rubber-necking fascination. It's like, who are these people? And if I can feel like I'm close to them, is that a way of almost protecting myself? These people are basically just like groupies of these killers in the way that Swifties are groupies of Taylor Swift. Yeah. And we are recording this on the day that her album was supposed to come out. All the clues were there, but apparently it was false news. Anyway, I'm not upset. The third category of people who are obsessed with true crime is people who find the stories and storytelling interesting. It's just the people who like to listen to it

and maybe wash dishes to it. Oh my God, have you seen those reels and memes and such where it'll be like someone perfectly contentedly sweeping the floor and folding their sheets, listening to the most grisly, horrific butchering of a young woman's pot. Her head was cut off, her hands were cut off. Yeah, exactly. I think that's the least dangerous category of people is really people who truly are just the consumers are listening, watching. Yeah. And they kind of worship their favorite true crime content creators, especially the podcasters. They feel intimately connected to other super fans of the genre and they voraciously consume this content not only for entertainment, but for solace and connection in what I think to be a fundamentally cultish sort of way.

And it's like if you go to any of the top podcast charts, the main things are going to be suggested to you are true crime. So unless you're really digging deep, you're going to be listening to disturbing shit. Yeah. Like this. And honestly, it kind of makes sense. I feel like there's a parallel with that with cults. You know how the world is kind of on fire right now? So people are like, I want to join a cult because I want to be told what to do. Yeah. I want some security enclosure. Yeah. I feel like true crime is that parallel with news. When you turn on the news, you see stories that are so gruesome about the present day. So you can at least listen to gruesome stories about the past. And that's probably what contributes to their romanticization is because

they happened long ago and, you know, everyone has like cool big framed glasses and flared jeans. Yeah. I also think the true crime stories sort of like confirm our preconceived notions that the world is bad and scary. And there's some comfort in that confirmation. Yeah. I totally agree. But I think that the reason why the Gabby Petito stuff was so kind of still cringy is because it became a true crime story as it was happening. Like it happened in real time. Like no one had time to process what was happening. It was like coming undone on TikTok. Yes. Let's use this as an opportunity to talk about when some of this true crime cultiness goes too far in the direction of sleuthing and obsession. I think that the amateur sleuthing can go too far in a bad way,

but I don't think that's always the case. I think there are times where like the advocacy and like the buzz that social media and the sleuthing creates kind of pushes law enforcement to take things more seriously. Although who is law enforcement taking the most seriously? And it's always a young white woman. Yeah. It was so clear when the Gabby Petito case was coming undone. They found like eight bodies of other people who had been missing while searching for her. But they weren't like pretty blonde influencers. And so many of the true crime stories that gain the most attention either as they're happening in real time or as they become entertainment are about like these traditionally conventionally beautiful white women, even though there are

so many missing people of color, indigenous women, black women who never get a sliver of media attention. There's actually a phrase that has been coined missing white woman syndrome to describe the mainstream media's fascination with covering missing or endangered white women while having seeming disinterest for cases involving people of color. I think it makes sense for the category of women that listens to true crime to be white women because they're the most privileged of all women. So it's like if you are a minority woman, you probably already are experiencing difficulties in your life. Like you don't want to be listening to this kind of shit. One of my closest friends is from a native background and they don't watch scary movies.

They don't listen to true crime because their brother was fucking murdered. Violence is just a reality in the lives of a lot of marginalized people. So they are going to use this as entertainment. And I don't want to make a generalization about that, but it is impossible not to notice how like when we were researching this episode, we were like looking for guests and we were like looking through podcasts and like the space is so white female skewed. I just think that's something that needs to be talked about because as a big part of like culture and entertainment, it influences like how people act and like what people look into. Yeah, exactly. Like what cases are pursued. I was thinking a little bit more about this and I don't know, perhaps a more

mindful way to participate in the fan cults of a genre that is so focused on stories about and by white women is to explicitly seek out stories about and by BIPOC folks and even contribute maybe to organizations bringing awareness to those stories. Yeah, like the coalition to stop violence against Native women and forge a national transgender anti-violence organization. The thing about true crime is that it's not just really white in terms of the stories that we're telling, it's also excludes people of color behind the scenes and behind the camera. Some stats I found after a quick online search is that at least 81% of writers are white with only 9% black across the genre, 20 of 26 series of either no black writers or just one black writer. So Gabby Petito

is an example of how like despite how sad and soul-crushing the story was, it ultimately did help that there was buzz around it because it not only led to finding her body, but it also led to finding like multiple other missing people's bodies, which is really just- No, no. How do people record true crime podcasts? Yeah, seriously, I want you to like keep talking about it. Really, it is. I have like kind of a newfound respect slash I'm slightly newly disturbed by people who record true crime podcasts because it's like so uncomfortable to talk about this kind of violence. I'm like, now we're like wimps. I'm just covering cults. I know. I really don't know how people cover true crime. Maybe it's because we like have never been in a cult, but we've also never been murdered.

You've never been murdered? No, emotionally. I know. I feel like a small part of me is murdered just by living in pure anxiety. But like every day people really do bring such humor to true crime spaces. Like first of all, the whole genre is ripe for puns and alliterations. Like, oh yeah, there are, you know, Facebook groups called shit like wives with knives. I think you just have to lean in. So to get through this last part, I'm going to lean in. Yeah. So Gabby Petito was an example of how even though it was a really sad story and it was developing in real time, it led to law enforcement finding her body and unfortunately, but also fortunately, for the closure of families, finding other people's missing bodies. Yeah.

I think that's an example of how like advocacy can like be for the better in true crime. But there are also examples of how true crime heads can get involved in it like is for the worse. Yeah, like the amateur sleuths. We're going to hear more about this from our guest in a few minutes. So stick around for that. But amateur sleuthing is not always harmless or positive. There are literally dozens of examples of people on Reddit or Twitter dragging the names of innocent people into criminal cases, thinking they're finding viable suspects when all they're really doing is potentially fucking up people's lives for their own entertainment. And you know, there are plenty of people whose family members have been the subject of true crime stories

who've come out and said like, this is unethical. This is not a story. This is my life. This is my family. I mean, if you think about it, it is very conspiratorial in a way and Colt Lake to be convinced that experts unilaterally are not qualified to solve or even sabotaging certain cases and that people at the fringes are the ones who have the real answers to these crimes. And then it speaks to our most bloodthirsty intuitions as people to want to pin certain crimes on the first sort of suspicious looking person we track down instead of following any type of protocol to get there. And that's why, you know, no matter if you're just a casual fan or an amateur sleuth or someone who's in love with Ted Bundy, you're kind of in somewhat of a cult that's having

negative repercussions on other people. It's that commenting on other people's lives and bringing people into the narrative that you don't know necessarily belong there. That's dangerous. I mean, we all watched Spotlight, you know, journalists need multiple sources to confirm a thing. You are damn straight. So now we're going to introduce our guest, Sarah Weinman. Sarah is the author of Scoundrel, which was published by Harper Collins in February. She's also the author of The Real Lolita, A Lost Girl, An Unthinkable Crime, and A Scandalous Masterpiece, which was named a best book of 2018 by a bunch of publications, including NPR. Weinman writes the twice monthly crime column for the New York Times Book Review

and writes the Crime Lady newsletter covering crime fiction, true crime, and all points in between. We were so excited to share this conversation with you. There are so many food delivery services out there these days, and I really do genuinely love Daily Harvest. I think they provide not just like food options, but also smoothies and snacks. Oh, it's truly one of my favorite food delivery services I've ever tried, also because it doesn't involve too much cooking, but the meals that you get are so delicious and healthy. Yeah, and it comes frozen, so it's not like it goes bad in a week, like you can keep it in your freezer and then delay your next shipment. It's especially amazing if

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Just to start off for our listeners who might not know who you are, could you start by introducing yourself and what you do and how you're connected to the cult of true crime? My name is Sarah Weinman. I am the author of the nonfiction books, The Real Lolita and Scoundrel, which was just published in February of this year. I've also edited several anthologies, most recently, Unspeakable Acts, True Tales of Crime, Murder, Deceit, and Obsession, which was an attempt to collect some of the best true crime writing in what I think of as the post serial ongoing true crime moment. And that came out a couple of years ago in 2020. And I also do feature journalism. A piece I wrote for the cut was nominated for the National Magazine Award in

2020. And I've written for pretty much every publication you can think of. And now I write regularly for the New York Times. I'm their crime columnist reviewing mystery novels and crime fiction. Very exciting. Your work is right up our listeners alley. So we're thrilled to have you here. I was wondering if you could first sort of start talking about what are the origins of the true crime genre and how it became such a cult followed fixture in our society at the moment? I like to say that true crime has been having a moment for over 300 years, ever since a preacher named Cotton Mather wrote a bunch of pamphlets and started issuing them. And he became a prominent figure during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, which is a great example of how belief can be

morphed into something awful. And there's almost like a culty fandom thing happening there. And really, it's just that society in general, but I think in particular, American society has always been obsessed with crime stories. The more lurid, the better, the more yellow journalism, the better. Every time there's some kind of technological shift or some major change in society, like the industrial revolution or various tech advancements, true crime kind of tags along because crime solving changes with technology and people's attention changes with how they're able to experience these stories. But in addition, I think what sets the ongoing movement apart from previous true crime moments. And I dated to the fall of 2014, when the first season of

Serial skyrocketed and just became this massive phenomenon and really attracted people who were not necessarily thinking of themselves as true crime consumers or fans or whatever. But suddenly they were invested in, well, who really killed Hamin Lee and what's going on with Adnan Syed? Was he wrongfully convicted? And it's just become this whole thing. But it also created this much larger space for people to contend with, to consume, but also to interrogate true crime. Because in tandem with all of this, thanks to the internet, you didn't just have people taking in true crime passively through books, podcasts, films, documentaries, television shows, you name it, but also feeling like they could participate and be part of the story as well.

And I think the last little while in particular, it's really spawned communities that feel like they are taking part in solving crimes, in doing the work that law enforcement either isn't doing or isn't seen to be doing because we civilians don't often get access to ongoing investigations. So as a result, there are a whole bunch of people who feel like they can be armchair detectives and have some kind of stake in it. But in doing so, it throws up a whole bunch of other ethical quandaries like, why are you spending all your time playing armchair detective when you're doing so almost at the expense of family members who are still contending with life lasting trauma and the worst thing that ever happened to them and the worst thing that ever

happened to their loved ones. So these are all the questions that I'm currently and I think will always be interested in. And that's also what keeps me kind of coming back to the well of crime nonfiction, because it's always a window into society, sometimes at its best, most often at its worst. You mentioned just a second ago that in the beginning, it kind of started off with when there's big cultural shifts with technology like the Industrial Revolution. That just kind of got me thinking, do you think, and this could totally be conspiracy theory vibes, but do you think that because a lot of true crime stories are also so surrounding like women being murdered, do you think that coincides with revolutions when

like technology moves forward? That means women get more rights and maybe they work outside of the house. And so these stories could maybe be put out there or garnering more attention to kind of like keep women afraid or keep them scared in any way. I think there's some merit to that. And it's partly because some of the most notorious and famous crime stories happened in the 1920s, which was not long after women got the right to vote or stuff happening with serial killers and young women in the 60s and the 70s in particular, when second wave feminism was very much on the rise and you had real radical shifts in what women were able to do and the fact that they could go from being stuck in the home and expected to be homemakers who raised their kids who didn't have

access to their money, who couldn't get credit cards, who couldn't get bank loans, who couldn't get mortgages to all of a sudden having way more freedom to Roe versus Wade being passed in 73 and other commensurate rights. So the fact that women had more freedom, yeah, there's always like some kind of deliberate but most often unconscious backlash to keep women terrified. And so I think the reason why women gravitate towards true crime in general is to contend with these fears, to contend with advances that they may not fully grapple with or understand. But they do know that there are a lot of scary stories out there that make them fearful and they're trying to confront their fear and maybe get on top of that or feel like, well, if I read a lot about serial killers

and I read a lot about women who are missing and murdered, well, this won't happen to me, which is, of course, a fallacy. We know this that, again, there's no correlation with the amount of true crime that you consume and the likelihood that you yourself will be the victim of crime because that depends so much on systemic inequities, on poverty, on homelessness, on racial inequities, on where you are and what kind of societal situation you are in that are much more complex than a Ted Bundy type of story. Yeah, like whether you listen to serial or not. Right. Yeah. So let's talk about some of the cultish aspects of true crime consumers and true

crime fandoms. When we say the cult of true crime, how do you interpret that at first blush? Do you see any aspects of cult fanaticism in the way that people consume and talk about and engage with true crime stories? What I have noticed is this uptick in the correlation between true crime and almost merchandising. I mean, there's always commercialism and there's always been means of selling things. All you have to think about is serial killer memorabilia, but that in itself, that's also why serial killer stories are often hard for me to grapple with because what happens is that people sort of form communities around them and find meaning and solace in people who really do not deserve that meaning and solace,

but what they're looking for is to fill some kind of emptiness or void. So the psychological underpinnings are of interest to me. People are desperate for communities of every kind. If a podcast like My Favorite Murder and listening to two comedians tell stories about crime leads to a vibrant community of women, it's like, yeah, that's cool. It's not necessarily for me, but I get it. I think where it can get a little squeaky is like, do we really need coffee cups that say wine and true crime? I don't know. That's not, again, maybe it's just like not for me, but I think it comes down to anything that leads to further dehumanization I have trouble with. And as a journalist, I have to remember that I'm approaching people to talk to them about

the worst things that happen to them. And so it also means that it's incumbent upon me to operate at the highest possible journalistic standards and caliber that I can't let myself off the hook. I have to be fully morally culpable in every decision that I make. And even knowing all that and operating in that sphere, I'm going to make mistakes and people are going to view me as a vulture because I'm a journalist and I'm writing about horrible things. That's why it's like really important for me to be extra careful in making sure my facts are right and making sure that I'm not peddling in false information, that I'm not approaching people in a way that they might necessarily view as harassment or talking about them in a way that they might see as

dehumanizing. There are certain things you just can't avoid, but you can certainly do your best to minimize harm. And so I think if there may be issues from a sort of fanish cultish standpoint, it's the specter of dehumanization. If there was a little more introspection, I think I'd feel a lot happier. It feels almost like a lot of people, like you mentioned, when they find community around that one story, they almost find the murderer or the serial killer as the cult leader in a way. Or just something to commune around. I don't know if you've watched the show's search party, but season one is pretty much about true crime. But the last season, it ends up being about cults. So I found that really interesting how at the same time that our society has started

to find interest in cults and transition from true crime, the show so seamlessly did that. It shows that it's done in a way because our society moves through media so quickly now that I feel like they were like, OK, what's next? It's like that SNL Joe Jonas sketch that was celebrating cult documentaries. That song, it was like, crime shows, crime shows. I forget how it went. And then the final joke was like, you know what's crazier than crime shows, cult shows. But I relate so much to that tricky balance of being fascinated and rubbernecking at these stories while also having empathy for the real humans whose lives were affected in such tragic ways. It's a really tricky balance to strike. And I think in my book, I do it differently

than we do it on this podcast where we keep it lighter. Do you think there are cult leaders, so to speak, in the true crime space? When I think of the relationship between cults and true crime, I tend to think of the killers because I think of people who surrounded themselves in real life or virtually around, say, Charles Manson or Richard Ramirez, who is the night stalker. And he had a bunch of women who wanted to marry him or Ted Bundy, who definitely had women after him. And one of them he proposed to while he was on trial and she bore his child. And then she finally saw, you know, it took a long time, but Carol Boone did snap out of it and cut off all contact. And she eventually died in obscurity. And

her daughter is living a private life. It wouldn't take very much for me to figure out where she was and what she was doing. But why? She's a private citizen. She didn't have to be boring. I don't think my people think Bundy is hot. Bundy looks like George W. Bush in lips. I have a theory that it's because it happened before we had like 1080p. You know, like the pictures and the footage of him is like so grainy that it like looks good. So let's talk about some of the problematic aspects of the true crime fandom. Is it problematic to be a fan of literal crimes? And can you talk about the sort of whiteness aspect? Because it's hard not to notice that so many of the true crime stories that gain widespread attention

focus on, you know, pretty young white victims. I mean, thank the late Gwen Eiffel for coining the term missing white woman syndrome because it was it's absolutely true. And even now, with with some companies and networks trying to redress some degree of balance, but you know, what seems to sell from a true crime standpoint is a young perceived as pretty woman blonde, or maybe brunette or maybe red haired, but definitely not a person of color. And definitely not someone who was in sex work or marginalized or homeless, who is from a middle to upper middle class or rich background who goes missing. And then there's some intrigue about it. And there's some scandal about it. You know, look, I mean, I love the late Dominic Dunn. I think he was a

delightfully trashy reporter of high society and rich people. But that can't be the only way that we consume true crime. And so I think all of the criticism about how the disappearance and murder of Gabby Petito in particular was covered is all warranted because it became the spectacle where people on TikTok or other social media platforms felt that they could solve the murder and figure out if Brian Laundrie did it and what was going on. Or get famous themselves by capitalizing on this news story. Right. Because there was some specter of being an influencer that somehow this would lead them to be influencers. And all the while it's like, this is a horrible story of intimate partner violence that many people had some knowledge of in part because they were

on social media and broadcasting what they were doing and where they were and creating this sort of false narrative of harmony, which was anything but we as a society are still so uncomfortable with the fact that the most likely person to murder a woman, be it a pretty young white woman or marginalized person of color, is someone that they know or that they're in an intimate relationship with or have some working knowledge of instead of a stranger. It's not going to be some boogeyman who lurks from the shadows. And they're always from Florida, I will say. Well, there's a reason why. The reason why no, the reason why we know so much about Florida crime is because of the Sunshine laws, which are the public records laws that are still astoundingly open, although who

knows with the way that the current government's going with stuff that they might attack that too. But at the moment, if you put in a public records request, you will get pretty much everything you ask for, whereas in most states, not so much. So Florida, they are like, you have to give them whatever they ask and quickly. So that's why Florida Man exists. It's not because Florida Man Google game is so fun where you Google Florida Man and your birthday. Right. That's crazy. That's so important to know because I feel like we all almost feel safer in other states because we're like, oh, we're not in Florida. But it's like, no, these men exist in every state. Right. I mean, granted, you also have people like the great Carl Hyas and longtime columnist of the Miami

Herald and the novelists who were writing about all sorts of weird and wacky stuff happening in Florida. That is definitely true. But we also get a disproportionate amount of Florida news, in part because their public records laws are so open. If you... In defense of Florida. They're absolutely as a Georgia man. You just never hear about it because their public records laws are terrible. You can't get anything out of them. Georgia men, we're going to change those laws. We're coming after you. I think that the Gabby Petito case was... I mean, it was nuts the way that it unfolded in real time. And then later on, it came out how in the search for Gabby Petito, they found at least nine other bodies of missing people who just didn't garner the same media

attention. And yeah, I think that kind of brought up the question of why Gabby Petito. And it was like, whose stories are we telling? Who's telling them? Yeah. Right. And so as someone who writes true crime and edits anthologies and is trying to do other projects, it's all the more important for me to figure out which stories are not getting told. How do we look at true crime in the broadest possible sense where what exactly is a true crime story? I mean, we have this idea of the classic features of the classic TV segments. But what about looking at the history of the customs and border patrol or evictions and what they do to people and whether that leads to any changes in crime or missing and murdered indigenous women and girls and sort of the societal downstream effects

of so many people being destroyed. And then it's not by one single person, but it's a collective destruction. I'm so down for those stories and that entire category of true crime because murder, I'm exhausted. I don't want murder personally. My soul is over murder. I could say that, but the truth is it depends on the murder and it depends on some of the other circumstances. But I will say when I'm searching for stories to work on, it can't just be the murder. There has to be some other element. It's like the reason that I wrote my books is because they were about crime, but they're also about the ways that crime intersects with American culture in particular. And I think looking at it from a more holistic standpoint and seeing how

crime stories are history, crime stories are public affairs. They're politics. Everything is politics, but it's true. The zeitgeist. Zeitgeist, cultural phenomena. I mean, technology, you name it. So fashion. Yeah. So if crime is part of every particular mode of story, then that opens up a lot of possibilities for what stories actually need to be told. Yeah. I think it's such a good sign that you're asking these questions so holistically, like the intersection of history and politics and cultural phenomena. I think it shows that you're kind of one foot in, one foot out in the true crime space and you're not like enamored by it in a culty way. I guess I'd be a skeptic at that point. Yeah. Exactly. Like you're in the space, but you're still challenging the space. And I

think that's so important. But what do you think is a sign that someone is in too deep in the cult of true crime? Maybe getting too many speaking gigs on certain circuits or becoming kind of a paid consultant for law enforcement. I feel like expert witnesses kind of get high on their own supply. You see that with people who are known to peddle in junk science and they get afforded expertise, the label of expert, when in fact they have nothing but because the technology or the techniques that they're talking about are actually junk. That's why I look at scans at Byte Mart specialists because so much of that forensic science technique has been debunked. Yes. And there are a lot of cult experts as well who are real popular around the speaking

circuit and have like their certain rubric for how you tell that something is a cult and like listen to me and only me and the way that I talk about cults. And isn't that just so ironic? People want to find ways to make money and people will always find ways to give them money. And I like to say that grifting is one of the greatest American pastimes ever and that continues. And if anything, it seems to be increasing. And it makes sense because we're in a time of tremendous societal of people who are still in a pandemic. There's a lot of poverty. There's a lot of loneliness. There's inflation. There's insecurity of all kinds. And so people fall for scams or get enmeshed in cults because they're looking for something that feels safe.

They're looking for something that solves their own internal strife that addresses problems that they didn't even know to think about. Yes, like skincare. Yeah, skincare is basically soap and water and eight hours sleep. I think the late author Lois Duncan once wrote in a book. It goes back to what I was saying about community that all humans ever want is some degree of connection. They want to find friends. They want to find like-minded souls. The reason why I gravitated towards crime stories, be it in fiction or nonfiction, is because essentially I had no one to talk about this stuff in my actual real life when I was growing up as a teen in the 90s. And then I found it on the internet. And then eventually I found my people in real life.

But I didn't fall down the sort of true crime fandom rabbit hole because I was always kind of suspicious of that and always felt distant from it, which is why I wanted to journalism, I think, to kind of ask questions and live in the discomfort and figure out what actually worked for me. But I think as we all know, it's like when someone falls into any kind of cult group, it's so difficult to extricate them from it. And I just hope that for people who are really deep into true crime fandoms, let's say, Zodiac killer stuff, it just seems that the correlation between true crime and conspiracy theory is probably going to get stronger. And I worry about that. Yeah. Yeah. And isn't it such a sign of cultishness when it's hard to extricate

yourself from a group because you profoundly think you're doing something good. You're helping. You're helping solve this problem. The reason I bring up Zodiac is because so many of these forums list people as suspects, but all they're doing is offering up actual human beings as a sacrifice. And what about the family members who have to read about their loved one as a potential suspect in a serial killing case? I mean, what does that do to you? That question is the perfect transition point to go into a little game that we're going to ask you to play. It's a game called Which is Cultier? True Crime Edition. So we're going to ask you a series of questions, just this or that type questions. And you're going to answer which

of the two you think is cultier. All right. So question number one, which is cultier? True Crime Edition. True Crime Novel Readers or True Crime Documentary Watchers? True Crime Documentaries just because it takes a lot longer to write a novel in some ways. True. And to read one. It's way easier to watch a documentary. True Crime Documentary Watchers or True Crime Podcast Listeners, which is cultier? Podcasts. And the only caveat I'll offer is that there are obviously different streams of true crime podcasts, like the ones that are more chat show conversationalists and definitely lean towards creating communities that people get very heavily involved with. More investigative

podcasts. I don't necessarily think there are culty devotees to APMs in the dark, which I view as like the gold standard for all of true crime podcasts. I love that. Yeah. Madeline Barron Madeline Barron is a genius, but I don't think she is a cult leader. Isn't that funny that the more legit and journalistic something is, the less of a cult following it has. I feel like that coincides with like cults themselves because like the less you want to think, the more likely you are to join a cult, you know? Like so if you're following like journalistic true crime people, you're like, there's more analysis. You have to like look into things more deeply, take it seriously like ethics, morals. Whereas like if you're listening to something that's just like

then you're like, ooh, I'm on for the, I'm along for the ride. Yeah, it's hard overhead. Often, yes. All right. Which is cultier? People who are in love with serial killers? As in people who like write to them in jail, etc. Or people who think they're actually detectives because they listen to one season of serial and they compromise real cases attempting to solve them online. I would actually go for the detectives because people who are in love with serial killers, that's sort of the more traditional choice. There's a wonderful book that Liz Greenwood wrote called Love Lockdown, which talked about the relationship between civilians and prisoners and when they become romantic and when they some of them become

obsessive and culty, but most are not. And it's, you know, a much more nuanced approach to that. And with armchair detective stuff, I think that just the propensity to believe that you were above the case and forgetting that you're dealing with actual humans and it's not just a game, that can really create some very culty type of behavior. And certainly the internet has removed the human aspect of that because everything's just uncanny and virtual, which is cultier, the glorification of law enforcement trope or the beautiful dead white teen girl trope. Probably the beautiful white dead teen girl trope. So thanks, David Lynch and Mark Sullivan, because Twin Peaks really kind of codified this for everybody, even though it obviously existed

before 1990, but that show really put it on the map. And there's a wonderful essay that Alice Bowlin who wrote the book Dead Girls, she had a whole essay about what Twin Peaks did and creating that sort of dead white girl trope that we know. Yeah, must have been nice to be like around in the 1950s and be able to establish so much of society just because you were around at the right time, you know what I mean? Like on to the last one, which is cultier, people who are obsessed with murder or people who are obsessed with cults. I mean, it feels meta to say that people who are obsessed with cults are culty. So I'm going to go with the meta because I always like meta. Hell yeah. Yeah, I mean, we do call our listeners culties. So cheese. If listeners want to keep

up with your work, where can they do that? They can go to my website at www.sarahweinemann.com. You can also find me on Twitter at sarahw. That's Sarah W and on Instagram as Sarah Weinemann. Sarah brought so much insight for me, at least in terms of like where true crime really came from. Yeah, and it goes way further back than the 1980s. Yeah, it is the OG literature. But what do you think? And keep in mind, everyone, we're going to do a part two. But for now, in terms of what we have discussed, what do you think true crime stands all under? Live your life, watch your back, or get the fuck out. Gotta be a watch your back. Yeah, I agree. Especially when we divide it into those three categories of people,

like people who literally just listen, people who listen and act on it, and people who idolize the killers. Yes, I think there are so many ways to interact with true crime content, and I think some of it is from pretty pure human intentions. Like, you can't tell people not to engage with stories like this. Of course we're attracted to stories like this. True crime and the communities surrounding true crime have brought a real sense of comfort and community to a lot of people. I mean, my best friend is a hardcore My Favorite Murder listener in the fan cult, and she told me that while she was going through her divorce, listening to My Favorite Murder and feeling like she was a friend of the two hosts helped her through it.

Yeah, and as we've learned, true crime hosts really are doing the Lord's work. It really is an art to make true crime entertaining. Yeah, I know. I feel a little gross right now. I know. I feel dirty. I'd rather talk about goop. Yeah, can we go back to talking about essential oils? Yeah, I feel mixed about it, of course, but I'm a consumer of a fair amount of true crime content, although at this point I'm sick of murder. I like the white collar crime where the stakes are low. You know, the Netflix documentaries about fine art fraud or fine wine fraud.

Yeah, fraud is in right now. True con. Yeah, true con. I just love when rich people get screwed over instead of poor people getting killed, you know? Yes, exactly. It's like when a poor person scams a rich person. I love a story like that. Yes, that's the story of Robin Hood. Yeah, Robin Hood, underrated. Really an underrated film.

Yeah, it started as a book, don't forget. Yeah, well, that's our show. Thank you so much for listening. We'll be back with a new cult next week, but in the meantime, stay culty. But not too culty. Sounds Like a Cult is created, hosted, and produced by Amanda Montell and Issa Medina. Kate Elizabeth is our editor.

Our podcast studio is all things comedy and our theme music is by Casey Kolb. Thank you to our intern slash production assistant, Noemi Griffin. Subscribe to Sounds Like a Cult wherever you get your podcasts. So you never miss an episode. And if you like our show, feel free to give us a rating and review on Spotify or Apple podcasts. And check us out on Patreon at patreon.com slash sounds like a cult.