Hey everyone, case studies are back. Expect one to arrive in your mailbox each Thursday at 6 AM CT. If you have any suggestions about formatting, or would like to participate yourself, leave a comment below. I’ve been debating adding my own analysis to these but I wonder how useful that would be. Subject: Rose, age 29 This case study examines the relationship between adolescent social isolation and engagement with true crime communities online. The subject, Rose, provides retrospective accounts of her experiences from ages 12-24, offering insight into the progression from casual true crime interest to direct engagement with incarcerated men. Rose: I'm 29 years old. I got my first laptop when I was 12. I got really into true crime as a teenager. I was on Tumblr a lot. Katherine: True crime, like TCC¹, or true crime, like My Favorite Murder? Rose: Like TCC. It started with getting kind of goth, and looking into stuff that would shock people. I just had my laptop, and there were no parental controls, so I read everything on Wikipedia that I wasn't supposed to read. I watched Cannibal Holocaust² and whatever the most banned movies were, then read a lot about serial killers. I started reading Tumblr blogs from people who write letters to serial killers, and then the people who were really into school shooters. I wasn't super active, but I was reading those blogs a lot from basically 15 until my early 20s. I ended up writing letters to prisoners myself. It created a lot of problems in my life. Katherine: What drew you to these communities, and what eventually drew you to prisoners? Rose: I think it started with not feeling like I fit in at all in high school. I had a really hard time making friends. I was just awkward, never knew where to sit for lunch… it was easier to be on the computer. Maybe I had some resentment toward the high schoolers that seemed normal, and I just sat and drew my serial killer fan art in the corner, which made it even harder to feel normal or make friends. When I started writing letters, it was like having somebody who would always pay attention to me. It just felt easier. I wrote letters to two of them. Well, there were a couple where I wrote some letters and they answered, but I never answered back. Eventually, I ended up forming pen pal relationships with two different people. Katherine: What was corresponding with prisoners like? Rose: I really liked the attention. It was nice to get home and have something in the mail that was handmade and handwritten, and somebody always happy to talk to me, somebody always happy to hear my voice. It felt like I could make their day so easily. Katherine: Did you find that same validation on the Internet? Rose: I mostly just read. I had a Tumblr, but I didn't make my own posts. That was kind of what inspired me because there were a couple women whose blogs I would read who had this hobby of writing to prisoners. Later on, one of them—I don't know if you know the Death Merchant³? She had a relationship with a convict and then it all blew up. He got a Tumblr and was posting that he had catfished her, or that she had catfished him. She was constantly posting about this relationship, and then it all blew up in a really public way, and then she disappeared. Katherine: Did you have a favorite serial killer? Rose: It feels like a long time ago. I wouldn't say I had a favorite serial killer, no. Katherine: Were you more drawn to serial killers or school shooters? I know they're almost like different parts of that community. Rose: I started with serial killers, that was the beginning, and then later it was more school shooters. Katherine: Can you describe how you related to them? Rose: Like a character, a fascination. The same way a teenage boy will watch Taxi Driver – well, they probably don't watch Taxi Driver anymore – but like Clockwork Orange or Boondock Saints, when you see a cool, violent man. I know that's kind of messed up to describe them as cool, but that kind of mystique of having a lot of power. Katherine: Did you ever have any sort of violent fantasies? Rose: Not myself, no, not my own personal fantasy. Maybe more longing for excitement in a way, but I've never fantasized about hurting people. Katherine: Did the real crimes that these people committed ever disturb you? Rose: They definitely disturb me now, so it's kind of hard to look back and imagine, but I think I was detached back then. Now I still watch true crime stuff sometimes, but I get disturbed really easily. I can't do the gory stuff. Back then, I would say that I thought it was interesting. Katherine: Do you have any regrets about viewing this content? Rose: Good question. Kind of – I mean, yes, I do, but at the same time, we all become who we are through our mistakes. I would not recommend it to anybody else. In the end, I made real-life decisions with real-life consequences that can all be traced back to being on the Internet. As long as you could keep it on the Internet, I guess it's harmless, but that's not always possible. Katherine: Are you referring here to writing letters to convicts, or was there something else? Rose: I ended up meeting up with one of them. I drove to Ohio and picked him up out of prison. Katherine: How old were you? Rose: I was too old to do that. I was 24. We had been writing for two and a half or three years, and I thought I knew this person. He was not the person I thought he was. Katherine: Are you comfortable sharing that story? Rose: Maybe another time, if you're curious. I would be happy to talk about it another time. It's a long story. I'm still processing my experiences and the role this has played in my life. I thought maybe it would help me to talk about it, think about it in a different way. You build up different narratives in your head to explain your actions, and sometimes I don't want to get too stuck on one narrative, so viewing it from different perspectives can help. Katherine: Is there something about your interests that troubles you, or something you want to talk about? Rose: I made decisions that seem clearly bad in retrospect, but somehow I was in a mindset where it made sense at the moment. If I try to explain it to any normal person, it seems really obvious to them that I shouldn't have done that. It's hard to empathize with my past self, but from a certain light, it all made sense, it all fit together. If you were there, maybe it would have made sense to you too. Katherine: On the Internet, we often don’t realize what we’re doing. Like people who have cyber affairs – they know what they're doing, but they don't feel it. It doesn't feel the same as getting a hotel room and meeting someone, and so they just carry on these affairs sometimes for years, and then one day they're like, wait, I actually did something here. Rose: That’s how I felt. Just reading about serial killers or school shooters, I wouldn't say that's inherently harmful. I think it's totally possible to just have an interest in a dark topic without it being morally bad. Somebody has to study these things so we can know this history. The school shooter and serial killer fans have done a lot of archiving and gathered a lot of information that is interesting for understanding a real problem in society. Katherine: Fandoms are sort of this culture of labor, and they do a lot of really necessary work. It's just weird because they have an emotional investment in it. Did you have any physical world community during this time? Rose: I was an outcast. Maybe self-imposed, I don't know, but I would say so, yes. Katherine: You mentioned how it was tied to feelings of resentment. Rose: I think any outcast ends up feeling resentful that socializing seems to come easy for some people. If it doesn't come easy for you, then it's hard to not resent those that just float through. Looking back, it's like, did the people who I thought were having an easy time really have an easy time? I'm not sure, but at the time, it was like, how do they make friends that fast when I can't? Katherine: What about socializing felt difficult, and why did you turn to the Internet? Rose: I think it was just because the laptop was given to me for school. As far as what felt difficult, if I could say, then maybe it wouldn't have felt difficult. I mean, it just didn't seem to come easy. Somehow, I would always feel awkward and self-conscious. Maybe I was too shy, or maybe I did say weird things. I don't think I'll ever really know. Now I do a lot better as an adult, so maybe it was all in my head back then, but I just felt awkward. Katherine: I know what you mean. I've always felt that way myself, where it's just like, I don't really know why I feel uncomfortable. I just kind of do. Were you always a lurker online, or were you ever an active part of any community? Rose: I was always just lurking. Even online, if I tried to be active, then I would second-guess myself and delete my posts. I was even self-conscious of interacting with people online. Katherine: I understand that feeling too. I actually was writing a piece for next week about whether you can have autism in the virtual world. No one really talks about that. Like, I feel like I always say the wrong thing in group chats. Rose: Exactly! It's supposed to be easier! It’s not easier. I'm too scared to join group chats. My sister's in a couple, and she's made some good friends. Sometimes I think I still want more social connections in my life, and maybe I should find a group chat, but I can't. I just second-guess myself. I write a message, read it over and over, and then erase it before I send it, or if I send it, I get so embarrassed and never send anything else. Katherine: What role did the Internet play in your social development? Rose: I think I was always awkward. In elementary school, I had problems too, and then I ended up getting homeschooled just because of my social issues. I went to four different high schools, and it took until college for me to actually become comfortable socializing. 1 True crime is a broader genre of media and entertainment that focuses on real criminal cases through documentaries, podcasts, and books, typically aimed at general audiences. TCC (True Crime Community) is a more specific, niche online subculture, particularly prevalent on Tumblr, TikTok, and X, that often involves deeper parasocial engagement with criminals themselves, including creating fan art and fan fiction. 2 Cannibal Holocaust is a highly controversial 1980 Italian exploitation horror film that follows a documentary crew in the Amazon and became notorious for its extreme graphic violence. 3 A prominent TCC blogger known as TheDeathMerchant/Jessika, who sold inmate memorabilia and claimed to be married to prisoner Bobby Ray Gilbert, was exposed for catfishing multiple inmates and committing fraud through her online store. The scandal revealed she had fabricated her credentials, marriage, and possibly other aspects of her identity, while allegedly using another woman's photos to communicate with inmates and pocketing money that was supposed to go to prisoners' commissary accounts. Cover art is from the Oak Park Talon. 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2024/10/31
Social Inhibition and Isolation in the Digital World
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