Their obsession of true crimes and celebrity murderers could … be evolutionary

If you freak through television or streaming service, you will probably say one thing: people love true crimes and notorious murderers. In addition, they love the awareness that is associated with certain cases, e.g. A study of 2024 showed that 84% of the US population from the age of 13 are real consumers of crime, which means that they observe or hear true crime through every medium.

Admittedly, I am not immune and can tell you pretty much every published detail of the Fall Jonbenét Ramsey. Every new show, interview or clip stops me in my scroll, and even if it is apparently old details that are presented in a new way, I will look and listen. I can talk about the case with friends in detail. Trust me, you also have all your own theories.

But if so many of us are interested, are true crimes and celebrity murderers a normal curiosity, or does this fascination say something scary about us as a society?

Dr. Shannon Curry, a clinical and forensic psychologist in Orange County, California, says Scary Mommy that the reason for the cultural interest in prominent and top-class crimes is “pretty simple”-at least from a psychological and evolutionary perspective.

“Our brain has developed to prioritize the attention at risk and threat because this has helped our ancestors to survive,” Curry told Scary Mommy. “If they were particularly curious, how someone was put down by a boulder, they remember the warning signs, avoid similar risks and live long enough to pass on their genes.”

Psychologically, our increased sensitivity to threats is part of the so -called negativity distortion or our tendency to notice negative information, to remember and be influenced by them, more than positive or neutral stimuli.

“It is a deeply rooted survival mechanism,” says Curry. “And although we may no longer have to scan the surroundings with saber tooth for cats, our brain still marks something that contains the damage, danger or death as 'important' to pay attention to this.”

Ok, are we so obsessed with true crimes, horror and top -class murderers because it is deeply rooted in our DNA? Well, somehow.

Curry explains that these stories often check every evolutionary box: danger, unpredictability, social betrayal and sometimes even taboo, and if you add the layer of celebrity – people who already attract our attention – you get a “kind of psychological superstimulus”.

“We are not pointed out because we tolerate the violence or the empathy for the victims, but because our brain is wired to set priorities and to commemorate information about threats, especially if the context makes social dynamics or moral violations,” she says.

Conclusion: Our curiosity for the macabre does not mean that we are cold or voyeuristic.

“It only means that our brain still does the job for which they were built: try to understand the world and protect us from damage,” says Curry. “Even if this damage comes in the form of a heading instead of a falling rock.”