e.g It might teach you to ride the wave of destiny, and treat life more like a rollercoaster than a linear videogame that you’re supposed to grind and minmax in.
If you’re only observing the event, and not seeing the way people deal with it, then I don’t think that would help much.
I don’t think desensitization is helpful, going through life numb is not a healthy choice. Watching videos of maimings, beheadings, and car accidents without context is not a good idea, for instance.
It can. It can also reinforce the trauma. Or it can do nothing.
It all depends on how someone interprets it
Personally, I have struggled with people telling me I’m insane or mentally ill or denying my experiences in life, but there are stories in the media and the internet that have shown me I’m not insane, my experiences are just rare and outside of the cultural norm and people tend to reject my experiences because of that. I actually identify with a lot of the shit minorities deal with a lot more than the majority experience, because I am an ‘invisible minority’ for most of my adult life, but I did not grow up as such.
I remember the first story that really made me feel seen was a story was a news article in 2007 about working class Latino kids and the issues they faced attending Harvard. Because that was what I was and I literally went through all the same struggles as the students in the article, but nobody had every acknowledged them as struggles. The concept of a ‘first generation college student’ didn’t really exist when I attended university, especially if your skin is white.
Whenever I expressed any frustration or discontent with my situation and the way people treated me people just told me I was a ungrateful selfish prick and I deserved to suffer and I had no right to complain because I was so ‘privileged’. I was not mentally ill or insane, I simple was the object of many folks anger because I was different than them.
That said, I did have a few good professors and friends who were also part of that invisible minority and really helped me deal with those problems. It wasn’t all bad.
Wise and succinct analysis
Fans of true crime media are overwhelmingly female and there’s at least one study that suggests it’s because they feel it helps them process and prepare for dangerous situations themselves.
That’s not any different that dudes watching Bear Grllys shit and thinking they will survive alone in the wilderness.
Or watching F1 and thinking they could race F1
Newsflash: It means shit. What it really is is fantasy project of their ego, and that is very pleasurable.
The best way for people to learn shit is by doing it. Women taking a self-defense class would actually prepare them for dangerous situations, and they’d have to do it repeatedly their entire life to keep those skills fresh.
listening to tons of true crime the last ten years has made so much more situationally aware and has honed my gut instinct. it can absolutely be helpful to women to be able to recognise patterns more easily.
example: i noticed a man following me subtley thru a grocery store late one night, and he tried to follow me outside. i went back in and had an employee come watch me get to my car. i know for a fact i would have been more oblivious if i hadnt consumed this content. i would probably brushed off my inner voice otherwise.
And taking three years of aikido made me a master ninja with amazing reflexes who can disable opponents with my mind.
You can believe that all you want, it doesn’t make it true. I’ve also had women accusing me of following them and harassing them, when I was simply walking down the street in the same direction as them, and they were paranoid nutbags. Last year I had a woman who was going the opposite direction as me in the grocery store and we kept passing each other in the aisles, and freaked out at me, and then later again in the parking lot because we hare parked next to each other, because again, paranoid nut bag.
I’m sure she went around telling her friends or the internet how she confronted this creepy weirdo guy who was clearly stalking her and trying to assault her, when she was just a paranoid idiot who probably listened to too much true crime.
You know what’s weird, that never occurred like 10 years ago… but 10 years ago people were binging on media that convinced them they were all very smart geniuses in a world that is OUT TO GET THEM either. We had a lot less conspiracy nutbags and political extremists back then too. Funny how that works.
Nah i’d argue that true crime gets into 1. Motivations of such people, 2. Tactics they use to lure people in, 3. A lot of situations people haven’t even though about
I read about and see videos about the humans right violations that are happening in Pakistan, Ukraine, and other parts of the world and I know if I were put through some of that, having seen videos and read shit ain’t going to mean jack shit.
Personally not at all but it does help me keep my sense of empathy alive.
For me it does. I like stories to help me process what’s going wrong in real life
I mean I don’t feel that way. im just so tired of everything bad.
I think hearing things from other people’s perspectives on traumatic events can often help us feel less alone. It stops being about something that happened to you and it starts being something the world did to you. That relief of responsibility can help.
I like that perspective. I do think it helps me personally.
But I also hear people suggest that looking atthings from a “the world did this to me” POV is narcissistic, which is bad. I disagree with that because generally people sre correct when they feel the world around them forced them into a situation
Maybe that’s not the correct wording then. I think it stops being about something being wrong with you and becomes bad circumstances.
