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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   14865 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 15, 2025

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I identify as a malt liquor True Crime cousin in that, I do, Truly, Crime-it-up to support my drinking problem.

The true crime wine mom phenomenon deserves an effortpost in the Sunday thread. If I make it intact through Christmas and College Football Bowl games, I might take a crack at it. One of the main themes, I think, would be that Married Woman True Crime pathology is an extreme form of the same pattern in trash romance novels; the danger is the attraction. Instead of taming the pirate captain / barbarian / whatever, True Crime Moms "solve" the case and therefore "tame" ... Ed Kemper? Yeah, it doesn't quite track and that's why I call it extreme -- these gals probably get off, to some extent, on the grisly details. This smart lady has a good, long vlog about the extreme world of female oreinted Romantasy - aka, hardcore smut.

But there's another true crime audience we're talking about. It isn't true crime, actually. It's internet real-time sleuths. The earliest big example of this that easily comes to mind was the Boston Marathon bombing. I actually stumbled across the Reddit thread where they were capturing CCTV footage, timestamps, rando schizo tweets (some of which turned out to be accurate). Anyway, these people, to me, are far more dangerous. It's an entire population of turbo-autists who have heard of "confirmation bias" exactly once, right before they discarded it as "not applicable to me because I am so smart." It's the same mode of thinking that leads down the path to "believe all women" and, yet, "trans women are women" (so, then, I guess we're believing every person?)

When these very online folks start to "work the case" for the Brown shooting, or any other event, they create a kind of epistemology-optional universe of ad hoc worldbuilding, but use real people and real data to prop up their shaky scaffolding. This is what makes it so bad. I have no problem with making up fun stories as a hobby or even professional pursuit. But when you're trying to cycle that "information" back into the real world in order to effect real world outcomes you're engaged in an enterprise that is actively hostile to basic civil liberties.

One of the main themes, I think, would be that Married Woman True Crime pathology is an extreme form of the same pattern in trash romance novels; the danger is the attraction.

I assume that women like True Crime for the same reason that men like fantasising about how we'd win a fight. Some profound evolutionary instinct to prepare for violence. But whereas men fantasise about how to confront violence, women fantasise about how to escape it.

My sister reads books about terrorists. She's not doing it because she has the hots for Osama Bin Laden.

Oh, are you certain about that?

Whatever you say, Fed

What does that have to do with my sister's predeliction for books about terrorists or the popularity of true crime podcasts?

It was a humorous juxtaposition. You stated "My sister reads about terrorists. She's not doing it because she has the hots for Osama Bin Lade." I then shared a link which documented an FBI translator who fell in love with an ISIS terrorist.

It's funny because it provides an example that counters your assertion, but in an over the top and outlandish way. My jocular statement "whatever you say, Fed" was a tacit confirmation that your point is valid and I agree with it, but wrapped in "Very online" verbiage.

Is your argument that women instinctively escape from violent men, presumably into the embrace of nonviolent men? Because I've never seen evidence of this.

I'm not talking about relationships or anything like that. I'm talking about a woman thinking about, say, a burglar entering her house or a mugger accosting her on the street. Men fantasise about how they would fight off the assailant in those situations, women fantasise (arguably more realistically) how they would escape him.

You seem to be talking about why women enter into relationships with (more or less) violent men, which is a completely different context and timescale.

I have no problem with making up fun stories as a hobby or even professional pursuit. But when you're trying to cycle that "information" back into the real world in order to effect real world outcomes you're engaged in an enterprise that is actively hostile to basic civil liberties.

It's interesting that a lot of the problems of information that threaten civil liberties and privacy now, were originally kept public for civil liberty reasons. Property records and arrest records being public prevents people or property from being spirited away under cover of night. But now with the internet, it gets to be too much for everyone to know.

The use of public information to look into crimes used to be helpful when it took work. When you had to go to the courthouse to get access to files. With the internet to spread it, it's all too much.

I go door to door in local elections, and we use software on our phones that filters houses for registered voters, and "supervoters" who vote in every off year primary. I find it creepy that I know all these things before I knock on their door, so I always knock and act as though I'm just knocking on every door, because it would be weird and off putting for me to start by knowing their name and their voting record and their registration.

Kind of like, when it rains, my wife gets vastly more answers than I do. When I'm schlepping around in a big coat, sopping wet, everybody looks out and says what's this fucking creep doing out there? When my wife is wet, people all answer the door, oh you poor sweet beautiful angel are you ok?

I mean my political door knockers always greet me by name.

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