i have pretty severe obsessions surrounding being “ethical” and being terrified to do anything someone might see as bad or wrong. i usually have a pretty okay handle on it overall but i do often indulge in compulsions involving searching twitter accounts of both people i do and don’t know personally to see what they personally view as ethical/wrong/etc, and i recently went on the page of a friend that i haven’t really spoken to in around a year and a half who basically said if you like true crime you’re a terrible person with no empathy for the people involved and who blindly support official narratives despite high rates of corruption/lying/etc. i am someone who watches some true crime, i used to do so a lot more but lowered my viewing due to a lot of the reasons my friend referenced, but obviously i don’t agree that liking it in any capacity makes you a bad person. normally this is something i could shake off with some time and space, but the fact that it’s someone j used to be very close to is making it stick more, as the idea that she would think i’m an awful person (despite us watching things like buzzfeed unsolved which has true crime aspects together before) stresses me out, even though we have had previous ethical disagreements (one being the last conversation we really had) though this was before my obsession honed in on this topic. i just don’t really know how to feel about it because on the one hand i do agree that a lot of true crime can be very unethical and terrible, but i don’t think the entire concept and everyone who listens to it can be painted with that broad of a brush, but my brain and past close relationship is making me think i’m wrong and just justifying this to myself and maybe i really am an awful person

smt456

Date posted: 3y

and yes, i realize the twitter compulsion is extremely unhealthy but i don’t really know how to stop, especially as the whole reason i even saw the true crime tweet was because i was trying to find a tweet i previously saw on her account so i could twitter search the original poster of it to see what they thought about a specific unrelated issue also related to the ethical obsession. i feel bad not doing this compulsion because i feel like i should be trying to learn more about what is and isn’t ethical and ignoring it is just trying to get away with unethical behavior which in turn makes me a bad person

anon<3

Date posted: 3y

First of all. I truly believe that nothing is 'wrong' unless it directly or indirectly harms other people. loads of people watch true crime, its not wrong, its not unethical. if everyone who watched true crime was a terrible person there would be a lot of terrible people in the world. I think that what that person posted was wrong because it was harmful to many peoples mental health

smt456

Date posted: 3y

i mean you could make the argument that consuming some or even all types of true crime is harmful to others because it could be retraumatizing to victims/their families or just making it harder to move on, and i do think some really bad examples fall into that category but there’s also other types that get permission from families or are even run by the families or include them which i think is different

anon<3

Date posted: 3y

theres so many people that do things that may be strange or odd to others. that's okay because they're not harming anyone so it could not be wrong, and unless its harmful to you, its not something to be worried about

anon<3

Date posted: 3y

well I don't know a lot about true crime but I agree that consuming some media is wrong because it exploits people

anon<3

Date posted: 3y

but unless you are consuming that type then I don't see the problem

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