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Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 24, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Then it occurred to me that my surprise isn't warranted, as it's natural that the people most likely to fantasize about true crime are the ones most secluded from its reality.

This theory would predict that middle- to upper-class men would consume true crime content at about the same rate as middle- to upper-class women (its natural demographic). Middle- to upper-class men may be slightly more likely to be victims of crime than middle- to upper-class women, but I can't imagine the relative crime victimisation rates are distinct enough to explain the differing rates at which they consume true crime content.

I think true crime content is rather ghoulish and exploitative, and the people who consume it are morbidly fascinated by death and violence. But because they're mostly women, a woke just-so story must be contrived to explain why they consume this content without casting them in an unfavourable light. Hence "women are so scared of being raped or murdered that they consume true crime content as a coping strategy" or whatever. If it was mostly men consuming this content, people would correctly be calling them out for being ghoulish.

I think true crime content is rather ghoulish and exploitative, and the people who consume it are morbidly fascinated by death and violence.

Hence the South Park episode pointing this out about a decade ago.

God damn, those boys do not miss.

Hence "women are so scared of being raped or murdered that they consume true crime content as a coping strategy" or whatever.

I also assume they love reading and hearing about cold cases from decades ago, because it serves to reinforce their view that Western patriarchy was always a brutal hellscape where rape victims were basically the punching bags of society etc.