III

Nightcrawlers: the tragedy of tragedy is not a Tragedy.

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Against all injustice, against all coercion, in favor of humanity and human beings.

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This incessant and morbid desire to show the details of existence through hyper-technology has stripped one dimension from our senses: desire.
A plague that I am eager to dissect is that of 'true crime.'
Its historical equivalent was theatrical tragedy. People enjoyed the play because not only was it imbued with the Aura that every live performance possesses (see Walter Benjamin), but because they knew it was fake, they knew there would be a happy ending (sometimes in a broader sense) because no one truly died; thus, they experienced it with lightness of heart and a keen interest in the representation itself – and through this, imagination, hope, and desire, as mentioned, remained alive.
In contrast, today's love for all things degenerate has led people to idolize those who narrate tales of dismembered people, brutally killed children, terrorist acts, creating, through the magic of editing, the icon and glorification of the serial killer.

A highly appreciated non-hero in contemporary times, not coincidentally, is the Joker. Infamously portrayed with scenes in which he dances and twirls, using all technical means necessary to make him seem glorious, rather than a madman, which he is. In reality, such an individual, who shoots people in the face, would at least have a repulsive effect on us.

It’s curious to note how the most followed figures in this (minefield, as I see it) are women, who never fail to put their made-up and groomed faces on the thumbnail, stupidly surprised, with fake wide eyes, their hands around but never covering their face, as it would obscure their twisted expression (helpful to draw clicks) of a chilling construct. In the background, the corpse of the unfortunate soul covered by a sheet is often visible, or various images directly taken from the crime scene.

The tragedy is that people used to fall in love with tragedy as a work of art, with all that it entails: costume designers, make-up artists, screenwriters, actors who embody the character and make it their own. So, it can be said that they fell in love with the entire process of creation. What they love now is the work of destruction.
I can extend the same principle to TV programs, which do nothing but propagate unhealthy true crime stories, not for the informative 'taste' of doing so that an investigative journalist might have, but to squeeze tragic events as much as possible, feeding them to the consumer who begins to live in fear, while turning the figures involved into icons (there are countless cases where the news started giving nicknames to those involved, as one would with a friend, because they’ve become 'part of the family' – always present on national TV, whether the citizen wants it or not).

That said, for me, all these programs should be abolished, along with those useless parasitic pundits who, dressed in their fancy clothes, talk about dynamics alien to them, aiming to provoke guilt in the spectator who is just trying to remain HUMAN. Thus, the blame becomes yours. If a man kills a woman, it's the fault of all men because 'society is patriarchal,' because men are raised with this imagery (I'd like to know how, since the majority of teachers are women. Are women the ones telling future men to kill them?), and if a fundamentalist Muslim blows himself up, it’s your responsibility as a Christian, or because you didn’t accept him as an illegal immigrant, or perhaps because your president, whom you may not have even voted for, offended another country’s leader whom you don't even know exists. But now, be quiet, go to sleep, and get back to work. When you're done, new responsibilities will be placed on you.

To be clear, I do not wish to censor true crime entirely, as in the fascist era, but the morbid desire to extract every single detail from an event that ultimately dehumanizes the people involved – not unlike the pornography industry: the various magnates eagerly await another young unfortunate (or unfortunate young man) devoid of dignity and humanity, ready to prostitute their body because they are incapable of critical thought or any other virtue.
Never forget that behind every true crime TV show are people who are waiting for another child to be kidnapped, a workplace tragedy to occur, or for a 'VIP' to develop some incurable disease, because their jobs depend entirely on this. Otherwise, they'd lose their work. I can imagine them behind the scenes, receiving a dossier full of mutilated bodies, rubbing their hands vigorously, with sly eyes, knowing that for the next few months, they will have enough work to analyze the case itself, build theories with spit, only to call other journalists who will disprove everything said over the previous months.

If I may still say so, if I were a relative of a shooting victim, and I had to see a video or TV broadcast full of sound effects to create some sort of dramatic tension, dim lighting to immerse the audience in the atmosphere, interrupted by commercial breaks promoting a new hair straightener, a slimming ricotta, or a month-long cruise, I don't know if I could maintain behavior consistent with my humanity.