00:07:56.340And why do you make videos trying to amplify the ways that true crime can be really unethical?
00:08:01.620Yeah, so I think it's important, like right off the bat to save myself a little bit of headache later, that I want to be clear that not all true crime content is the same, especially on TikTok.
00:08:11.480There are some creators of true crime content that I find make at least what I would consider more palatable and what I think is more genuine content.
00:08:19.720but a lot of my videos I had made in the past were kind of hyper fixating and really shining
00:08:25.400a light on some of the rougher stuff that you can definitely find out there and so like with
00:08:31.260that out of the way I think it's probably important we talk about some of the more problematic
00:08:36.020popular stuff that definitely goes viral I find things ranging from true crime accounts that are
00:08:43.180dedicated to like frosting cookies like I think they're a professional baker and they'll be
00:08:46.940frosting cookies while they talk about some poor woman that was brutally murdered by her boyfriend
00:08:50.640and they kind of make it i don't want to say light-hearted but it definitely has a very
00:08:54.700light-hearted atmosphere about it like oh look at me decorating this cute little cookie of a puppy
00:08:58.540and it feels to really take away from the seriousness of the situation i've also found
00:09:02.740accounts that are dedicated to uh somebody you can find on amazon somebody published like a
00:09:07.840a coloring book all dedicated to different types of serial killers and i think they tried to
00:09:12.260advertise it as some sort of like educational material because i think it gives like a little
00:09:16.340blurb of each serial killer on every page, but it's also still a coloring book. So it feels a
00:09:22.340little morbid. And oftentimes these people who are making these videos, they'll have themselves
00:09:28.400talking over these videos and it, the attitude about it just seems very off. They've got this
00:09:33.140very lighthearted, almost fun, ha ha, crazy how this happened 10 years ago, kind of attitude about
00:09:39.240it. And it's always been driving me really crazy because not to get into too many specifics about
00:09:43.580it, but as somebody who is actually pretty close to a very high profile case, if I saw somebody
00:09:49.900making content about that specific high profile case, I could not be disgusted. So I can't imagine
00:09:56.420that people who had an even closer connection to these high profile cases they're covering
00:10:00.640might come across this content and how they might react or how that might make them feel.
00:10:06.060And it's truly unfortunate because I often hear kind of as a reaction to that is like,
00:10:10.460oh, they wouldn't see it. Well, I saw, I've seen several videos related to the case that I have
00:10:16.100a connection to, and they don't make me feel great. And I think it's really important that
00:10:20.000we remember that, especially if a lot of true crime content creators will come at with an
00:10:25.540attitude of respecting the victims and trying to bring awareness to situations, especially if
00:10:30.680they're potentially ongoing. But that's kind of hard to, that's a hard pill to swallow when you
00:10:36.080also look at their content and you're like, if I were the person affected by the situation, I would
00:10:39.520not feel comfortable with how you're covering or the attitude you have, or just the atmosphere of
00:10:44.300the content in general. So that was the big driving factor for me to highlight some of the more
00:10:49.040nefarious parts of the true crime community. And I always want to make sure that people understand
00:10:54.360that, like I said, not all true crime content is the same. And it's really important that we help
00:11:00.780uplift the content that is more ethical and is speaking more politely about it. But one of the
00:11:07.400biggest factors in that is highlighting the worst parts and the kind of instances we want to be
00:11:14.100avoiding. Absolutely. You know, and I'm so glad that you brought that up. You know, I think that
00:11:19.620it's so important for people to remember that you're talking about actual people and like their
00:11:26.300trauma and the, and like their community members who are left behind to like pick up the pieces.
00:11:32.360And, you know, I think, I think there was like a really, frankly, tasteless shirt or something about Jeffrey Dahmer. And I think it was your TikTok where it was like, that wasn't that long ago, you know, his, the family members of his victims are very much still alive. And like, you think they don't have social media, you think that it's so far fetched that they would see, you know, tasteless, crass shirts that people are selling with like cutesy little slogans on them.
00:11:59.600I think it can be, I think when I see true crime content that clearly does not take into effect the account that you're talking about real people who, some of whom can, you know, as yourself, as you said, like, will see the way that you're talking about their loved ones who are no longer here and like the worst, most dark parts of their experiences.
00:12:20.460And just sort of being so callous about that really doesn't sit well with me.
00:12:26.960and uh not to like get too much of my own personal life but uh the reason that the
00:12:33.340Jeffrey Dahmer shirt really stuck out to me is because I actually currently live in Milwaukee
00:12:36.980and the Jeffrey Dahmer was from Milwaukee so it I don't know if it was the proximity to the crime
00:12:42.540that kind of made me feel this way but seeing shirts that made uh very lewd sexual and very
00:12:48.020uh humorous jokes about it I was like why why one are you comfortable selling this like
00:12:53.500The excuse of, oh, it's just dark humor, learn to take a joke, can only carry you so far. And you can sell that shirt. I'm not going to stop you. But I am going to remind you that these people were human beings and that Jeffrey Dahmer predominantly targeted gay black men and he killed and violently sexually assaulted children.
00:13:14.860I'm going to remind you of that and you kind of have to live with how that makes you feel because0.58
00:13:19.940that's just reality and I think that helps snap a lot of people back into like oh this might not
00:13:25.420have been great but there are people who are inevitably going to just use the it's dark humor
00:13:29.340get over it excuse regardless and we just kind of have to live with that but I mean if reminding
00:13:35.060people helps I'm not going to be upset by it. Yeah I mean how would you if you were wearing
00:13:41.220happened to be wearing one of those like awful tasteless shirts making like making a joke about
00:13:46.440Jeffrey Dahmer's crimes imagine like bumping into what like a family member of one of the victims
00:13:53.000like you better be like like what I wonder if these people would be how they would feel about
00:13:57.580explaining oh it's just a joke it's just dark humor to their face that they actually came in
00:14:02.320contact with these folks I think that like perhaps it can feel like you're so removed from these
00:14:06.960people like they don't even necessarily seem like real people whose feelings or whose perspectives
00:14:11.620you even need to take into account it really just rubs me the wrong way yeah there was actually a
00:14:16.920I believe it was a bar I don't want to say it was a restaurant I think it was just a bar in Milwaukee
00:14:20.440that um it's a really historical building uh it's very iconic and they actually gotten a lot of
00:14:27.120controversy a few years ago uh they were running like a Jeffrey Dahmer cannibal themed tour in the
00:14:32.960city of Milwaukee. And somebody had mapped out that they were only maybe like three or four
00:14:38.460miles away from Dahmer's old apartment. It's since been demolished, but they were like a
00:14:44.120stone's throw away from it. And it took so much public pressure to be like, the family members
00:14:49.740are still in this city. They probably drive past your bar. Why would you do this? And the amount
00:14:56.060of public pressure it took is pretty sad, but eventually they caved and it kind of really
00:15:01.060helped the city of Milwaukee reel back and be like, okay, maybe we shouldn't have Jeffrey Dahmer
00:15:04.260themed food and drink and tours and make all these board games and all these things. Like it,
00:15:09.720it really helped kind of put that into perspective. So I hate when you kind of have to lambast or you
00:15:15.460have to put one figure on a, like on a pike to be like, look at this terrible thing. Cause like,0.99
00:15:22.240this is a business. I still, I don't want these people to go jobless, but in an instance like
00:15:26.480that sometimes it does take publicly shaming one large group of people to get the rest of the
00:15:32.040people to realize like hey maybe this isn't cool yeah so that's so interesting i mean i want to i
00:15:38.020want to switch gears a bit and talk a bit about the case that i feel like is really just taking
00:15:43.960off on tiktok um the tragic situation happening with gabby petito um by the time this comes out
00:15:50.180you know i know the last update that i saw was that uh they had found remains and they
00:15:56.180they were consistent with her but it wasn't wasn't clear if it was or not um i i want to say
00:16:03.160right off the top of the the conversation that you know what happened to her is a tragedy i i you
00:16:11.440know i don't know the specifics of what has happened but you know it's tragic and horrifying
00:16:17.720and like my heart goes out to her family and to her community and I guess I wonder you know I'm
00:16:24.160sure you've seen them too all of these very it almost seems like every time there was a new
00:16:31.960update I was seeing new TikToks on my for you page some of them were just sort of like by the book
00:16:38.280like here's what's going on you know just like news update and like I didn't really have a problem
00:16:43.960with those but then I would see these other videos that almost seemed kind of gleeful or like excited
00:16:51.060I can't even really describe it it would be like you would think they were talking about like a new
00:16:57.060episode of a show they like but they're actually talking about like the like disappearance of a
00:17:03.900young woman who is a real person and I can't really explain the why I I just like really
00:17:11.780was surprised to see this and I was surprised to see how much it took hold you know I'm a bit
00:17:18.320older than you so I remember when Natalie Holloway went missing I was in college and it was like
00:17:22.760the around the clock coverage of her disappearance people were like oh well it's because she is a like
00:17:28.900pretty white girl and you know there are so many different you know indigenous black and brown
00:17:33.940women who have gone missing in the same area that certainly have not gotten the same level of
00:17:38.300of you know attention that this case has gotten and that's not to take away from the fact that
00:17:44.080I'm I'm happy that people are you know really motivated to find her and that they're that
00:17:49.840they're like they're talking about her case but I can't help but wonder like is there a way that
00:17:56.300people can talk about this situation that just is seems kind of ghoulish to me absolutely I you're
00:18:06.280You're hitting on all of the points that I've been trying to get across on my TikTok.
00:18:11.360So like you said, just to make sure that we're all clear, we are very happy that Gabby was
00:18:17.180able to get the social media attention that she did get.
00:18:19.840And I think to an extent, it can highlight the power of social media because there were
00:18:25.500so many posts out there being like, hey, this young girl is missing.
00:21:41.800streaming radio and podcasting call 844-844-IHEART to get started that's 844-844-IHEART
00:21:49.640if your bookshelf and your for you page are equally important to your personality
00:21:53.640welcome home this is prose society the weekly podcast that's part book club part group chat
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00:23:49.400yeah i saw one of the videos where um somebody was uh referencing l woods you know that scene
00:24:00.900at the end of legally blonde where l is able to be like oh because of her her perm she couldn't0.76
00:24:07.760have been in the shower because her curls are intact and it was in reference to a instagram1.00
00:24:11.940picture of gabby with uh blonde hair with like her her roots had been done so her roots were not dark0.93
00:24:18.380And, again, I think that referencing, like, I love Legally Blonde. I think, like, referencing yourself as an Elle Woods type or any reference to that, to, like, a comedy when we're talking about a missing person, I think is just not good.
00:24:39.320And I think like, I remember back during the Boston bombing, at that time, I was like very active on Reddit. And Redditors were so convinced they had found they had like solved the Boston bombing. They thought it was this guy who had gone who had gone missing as family was looking for him. And they were like, Oh, the pictures are the same. And it turns out, it was not true. Like it was just, they got the wrong guy.
00:25:58.660B, when you glorify internet sleuths, you also have to take into account that internet sleuths have like ruined people's lives, got the wrong person, you know, just gotten it wrong because they're not actual, you know, investigators.
00:26:16.480There's people on social media or on the internet.
00:26:20.220And I also, I mean, I don't know how I felt about that.
00:26:25.160She basically said that the reason why people are being so hard on these TikTokers is because they're mostly women, young women and girls, and that we don't like young women and girls, and so it's just sexist.
00:26:37.340And I thought it was an interesting sort of devil's advocate position.
00:33:01.700So I want to be clear that I can really understand
00:33:04.920the the the reasoning behind why people get why people act the way they do when it comes to this
00:33:11.560kind of thing I really can but I think that those kinds of feelings can be sort of intoxicating and
00:33:17.800when you're in when you're intoxicated on a feeling when you when you feel like you are
00:33:21.880you know crusading for justice I think that sometimes you know the bigger picture can get
00:33:30.540missed and you can sort of like miss exactly what you're talking about what happens if somebody's
00:33:33.920wrongly accused what happens if you're actually making you know an investigation work like what
00:33:39.200if you're actually impeding an investigation by whipping up so much social media frenzy so i'm
00:33:43.560happy that in this case it seems like it might have gone okay but i don't want that to make it
00:33:51.720seem like oh it's it's good to have a social media fueled you know mob justice style internet sleuth
00:33:59.980frenzy, it's always going to end up okay. I feel like that's a really dangerous precedent.
00:34:05.320Exactly. And especially talking about just like the possible implications of something going this
00:34:11.680viral, like the OJ Simpson case, that was one of like the most iconic high profile cases.
00:34:18.520And because it was covered on literally every inch of the, every inch of the news, every magazine,
00:34:24.240every newspaper. It was absolutely everywhere. That actually dramatically impacted how the
00:34:30.240courtroom played out because how can you find a jury of impartial jurors when every single person
00:34:36.720has heard about this story and every single person has come to their own conclusion? So I can imagine
00:34:42.520that if I pray that Gabby finds justice and we figure out exactly what happened and this
00:34:47.440potentially leads to somebody being tried in court, the more viral this story is and the more
00:34:53.380conspiracies that are popular, the harder it's going to be to find a group of 12 people that
00:34:58.940don't already have their own opinions. Absolutely. I have to show you something that so I don't know
00:35:05.600what your Facebook feeds look like. But I know that mine has just been any little update on this
00:35:10.800case, a new story. And so I'm I'm in Washington, DC, right? I'm not anywhere near where this
00:35:17.060happened. On my local Fox affiliate Fox five DC. I'm going to show you this picture. I don't know
00:35:22.700if you can see it through the camera and the head rainbow yeah and the headline says rainbow
00:35:28.180appears where authorities discovered body believed to be gabby petito a rainbow appeared in the area
00:35:32.720where authorities earlier sunday discovered what they believe to be the body of gabby petito in the
00:35:37.080grand teton national park and part of me just thought like it's very clear to me that any new
00:35:43.420angle they are going to get as much eyeballs and they they they're gonna use this story to get as
00:35:50.980much eyeballs and clicks as possible like if it's an actual update on the case or an actual update
00:35:56.440in her disappearance or you know something like that sure but part of me was like who like
00:36:01.880you're cap you're like writing an article about a rainbow appearing making it like I just really
00:36:10.080had a problem with that story and I was like wow they really are any new angle they are wasting
00:36:16.000no time to make sure that gets in our feeds because it's almost like they're it felt like
00:36:20.560they were feeding this frenzy or this appetite for new content about this case. And it didn't
00:36:26.420matter if it was actually a breaking update. It didn't matter if it was actually relevant to the
00:36:30.720case. Personally, I don't think a rainbow appearing in the sky is necessarily going to be relevant to
00:36:36.600this case or even timely local information from my local news source here in DC. But the fact that
00:36:42.240they were surfacing this to me, I was like, well, they really are just trying to have a steady stream
00:36:48.060of content related to this what not not just important breaking you know information about it
00:36:54.540but just like anything like oh here's what the weather was like when they found her body
00:36:57.560yeah that's that's a rough one and then even marches kind of back into the territory of a
00:37:03.380lot of people who say how are these online internet sleuths who just report every five
00:37:08.040seconds on the newest update whether it's true or not any different than local news stations
00:37:12.540and there is an argument to be had for like new stations tend to have this problem too they tend
00:37:18.820to milk stories for everything they're absolutely worth but that criticism of them is out there and
00:37:25.220public and maybe it's not getting enough attention and it's not getting enough people talking about
00:37:29.780it as it deserves but that doesn't make the people online who don't even have remotely
00:37:35.100any professional experience in this free from that same amount of criticism to say like oh
00:37:40.980he did it too, is not get out of jail free card from you also being held liable for some of the
00:37:46.480content some random person on the street might make. And I, I tend to get a lot of criticism
00:37:52.240in the game of like, Hey, this isn't my day job. I'm just making random videos on the internet.
00:37:56.840Why are you mad at me? And I totally get that. I'm somebody who makes random videos on the
00:38:01.960internet too. I didn't plan on having a quarter million followers. Uh, I still have a day job
00:38:07.860and it's i i get it but if you're gonna keep that platform prepare for the criticism that's just
00:38:16.060that's what's gonna come with it yeah all right that's such a good point and i think like it
00:38:19.940reminds me of something else i learned from your video from your um tiktok about this is that like
00:38:24.340sometimes particularly on youtube but i do know on tiktok as well you know your tiktok can be
00:38:29.740monetized your youtube can certainly be monetized part of me was like is this just people kind of
00:38:33.960like making money off of someone else's trauma and someone else's pain and someone else's tragedy
00:38:40.920like you know I can understand the incentive to like report on every little thing be the first
00:38:46.500time to report on a breaking thing no matter if it's true you know every little speculation make
00:38:50.460a new video about it if you are trying to you know gamify that to get more eyeballs because it
00:38:57.980leads to more money I mean that's definitely we know that is how some of these platforms work
00:39:02.540Absolutely. And comparing, not to do this for a second, but to compare the amount of money that you can get between platforms, TikTok is one of the lowest paid social media platforms. So as far as like raking in the cash, TikTok's not necessarily the best way to do it. But that doesn't mean that you can't make money on TikTok.
00:39:23.500talk. I am no longer monetizing my content, but when I did have monetized content, anytime I broke
00:39:31.420a million views on a video, I could get anywhere from like 50 to 200 bucks, depending on how many
00:39:35.840comments, how many likes, how many times it got shared. So if you go back to like what I was
00:39:40.340saying, there was a girl with over 40 videos and all of them had hundreds of thousands of views,
00:39:43.700you start doing the math that can add up really quickly. And that's not to say that people's
00:39:47.720content doesn't have value and you shouldn't be paid for your work. But especially if you are
00:39:53.920being paid for your work, you should be held to higher criticism. Because now, hey, you're making
00:39:59.280money off of this. If you want to just report on exactly what happened, I can't fault you for doing
00:40:06.320that. And I'm not necessarily mad that you're making money. But as soon as you start getting
00:40:10.820into the conspiratorial, the speculative, the outright wrong information, then, hey, I'm going
00:40:16.540to remind you you're making money on this you should probably try to be ethical about it there
00:40:20.200was one girl in particular who she's since taken her video down and she has apologized so we'll
00:40:24.280give her credit for that the girl who popularized the theory that uh gabby was actually a serial
00:40:29.800killer uh that's horrifying and i cannot imagine her family seeing that i feel bad even mentioning
00:40:36.120it on a podcast but that that happened they spread that conspiracy theory and she took her video down
00:51:58.580And actually, you know, I've seen recently folks making that criticism of the Gabby Petito case. And so I've seen a lot of true crime content creators sort of, I will say like trying to respond to that. So they'll be talking about Gabby's case and then be like, oh, that's similar to this other case that involved a person of color or a, you know, a non-white victim or an LGBTQ person.
00:52:24.300And I, I'm, I'm here for it. Like, I'm like, if you have a platform and that you can use to get the word out about these cases that are not getting as much attention, I think that's great. But I can't help but wonder, like, why weren't we doing it all along? Like, why did it take that nudge of like, you know, there are there were 710, you know, missing and missing and murdered indigenous women and girls in that same area. Talk about them as well.
00:52:50.320Like, I'm happy that folks are boosting this because I think, I think, you know, it could, it could really like revive interest, you know, but I just have to ask, like, why did it, perhaps we should be interrogating why it took a nudge, why it took that, that kind of, that kind of line being sort of like in the consciousness of how we, how we're talking about this case to make that, to have folks that are making a true crime content, start generating awareness about these other kinds of cases.
00:53:18.380Exactly. And I do very pessimistically kind of fully expect that once the coverage of Gabby kind of dies down, that this conversation might die. And anybody who's willing to keep that conversation going and not letting people forget, well, I think that is the biggest uphill battle, I think is absolutely noble.
00:53:37.600like i hate that uh a woman had to be put in that situation and had to get the national coverage she
00:53:44.780did to get people to talk about it again um but there have been people of color talking about this
00:53:49.360the whole time and nobody was ever listening to them and it's so frustrating that the only time0.81
00:53:55.620they get the microphone even if it's for a short period of time is when something tragic and
00:54:01.540horrific happens to a white woman like nobody nobody deserves to happen nobody deserves to
00:54:06.880have happened to them what happened to gabby um and it's frustrating that the consequence of that
00:54:12.420is this is the only time that people who've been focusing on that issue this whole time finally get
00:54:15.920to speak because they will be immediately shot down as a why are you making this about race and
00:54:21.000it's like i it's it's been about race this whole time uh i've been talking about this whole time
00:54:26.200a white woman passing away tragically doesn't change what i've been saying jessica i thank
00:54:31.500you so much for your work and your perspective like I wasn't really sure what to expect from
00:54:37.300our conversation because I just had a lot of thoughts and like feelings and having trouble
00:54:41.260just even like processing them but you know I find that your work really helps me articulate
00:54:46.400my own thoughts it helps me process you know in in highly charged times helps me like process
00:54:52.840and reconnect to like what I'm actually thinking so thank you for your work where can folks follow
00:54:57.820you and what are you working on these days? So right now I have a hodgepodge of content.
00:55:03.520I still do make a lot of trafficking awareness videos and I talk a lot about trafficking
00:55:07.040misinformation. That is on my TikTok at bloodbath and beyond. And then that is my handle on all
00:55:13.160other socials. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi? You can
00:55:22.160reach us at hello at tangody.com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangody.com.
00:55:27.560There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by me, Bridget Todd.
00:55:30.320It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.
00:55:33.040Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer.
00:55:35.100Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer.
00:55:37.700Michael Amato is our contributing producer.