The fandom I chose this week is true crime and specifically true crime podcasts. Podcasts launched
in 2005 and were originally produced as a rival to radio. In 2014, the true crime podcast Serial was
released. Its popularity soared seemingly overnight, becoming the fastest podcast to reach over 5
million downloads (Roberts, 2014). The release of Serial truly lit the world of podcasts on fire.
Following 2014 several podcasts were released and well received by audiences. In 2019 half of
the top 10 podcasts were true crime (Heaney, 2019).
The easiest way to recognize other fans is simply by bringing it up in conversation. I listen to a
variety of shows and have no issues bringing it up or my opinion on certain shows. This week
Adnan Syed was exonerated and released from prison after 23 years. Twitter has been flooded
with true crime fans speaking about this. It is pretty easy to spot those who are team Serial and
those who are team Undisclosed. (In my opinion, Serial remains problematic and Undisclosed is
the superior podcast.)
True crime has grown in popularity in recent years not because we are all obsessed with the grisly
aspects of a crime. We are interested to know the “why” behind a crime. According to Emily
Mendez, M.S., Ed.S., “true crime appeals to our natural instinct to survive” (Scherman, 2019). I
feel like this helps explain why more women than men are drawn to true crime.
References
Heaney, K. (2019, August 19). Is true crime over? The Cut. https://www.thecut.com/2019/08/is-
true-crime-over.html
Roberts, A. (2014, December 23). The Serial podcast by the numbers. CNN.
https://edition.cnn.com/2014/12/18/showbiz/feat-serial-podcast-btn/
Scherman, J. (2019, April 8). The psychology behind society’s true crime obsession. Rasmussen
University. https://rasmussen.edu/degrees/justice-studies/blog/true-crime-obsession
