They are tragic and horrific. And, yet, we have some sort of fascination with true crime stories. But why do we feel the need about learning in details how (other) humans can be so… inhuman?
The O. J. Simpson was probably the first case in modern time that was watched by millions of people daily. And people of all races, religions, and social backgrounds were interested in the details about the killings of those victims.
If there is any specific reason why the gruesome remains fascinating, all specialists can do at the moment is to speculate and guess why.
The first hypothesis is that the vast majority of people live very normal, non-violent, and borderline boring lives. If you compare a normal middle class life with life in the slums of a poor country, it is certainly a different environment from a rural town that experiences little to no crime.
Another possible explanation is that human psychology has an innate curiosity of leaning how and why someone commits a crime. Some rare criminals fester on telling people the details, but the vast majority of them leave to the police to uncover their actions and never open up about what they did.
Other experts say that part of the human desire for justice comes from the fact that all the details of a crime have been cleared up and brought to light.
Some people like to learn about true crimes stories and know how deep into trouble other people are willing to go, and then feel good about themselves by knowing they would never do such things.
Other people live in fear that something similar might happen to them. Therefore, watching TV and reading books and news about those facts helps them prepare subconsciously if something similar were to happen to them.
And, last, the media itself likes to feast on all of the above reasons and chases all graphic details about violent crime. Regardless of the relevancy of you learning about someone else being murdered across the country, you will definitely hear about it on the evening news broadcast. By exposing these crimes to the greater public and exploiting this fascination with true crime, the media gets the attention it wants – at least until the next news cycle.
It is truly amazing how quickly dark images can attract and captivate our human minds and instincts. We long to know the why and the how. We all want the gory details, and we will go chasing after them until we get every last bit of information possible.