Why is psychopathy becoming a trend?

Graphic by Kash Patel

When I went to Cuba over the Christmas break, I read a book called The Devil’s Defender by John Henry Browne. He was one of many lawyers who represented Ted Bundy in the 70s and 80s.

In the book, he describes what it was like to represent Bundy and goes into a lot of detail that no one ever knew. After I finished it, I thought I wouldn’t have to think about Ted Bundy for a long time. That is until Netflix came out with Conversations with a killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes.

It seems to me that psychopathy has become a real big social trend in terms of entertainment in the last few months.

On Netflix alone there’s You, The Ted Bundy Tapes, Serial Killer with Piers Morgan and Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened that all have been released in the last few months.

Just a couple weeks ago the trailer for Extremely Wicked, Shocking Evil and Vile, the biopic of Ted Bundy starring Zac Efron as the notorious serial killer, was released.

In some ways, I’ve noticed that the idea of psychopathy has been overly glorified as a trend. While it is a very interesting topic, I don’t think it’s really being taken seriously.

As much as I love psychopathy, this is not a good social trend. Not only are people going to be accusing everyone and their brother of being psychopaths, but there is also room for people to start copying what they saw.

On Twitter, you’ll see tweets chirping the FBI for hunting Bundy down, how the main character from You shows that men can never be trusted, to the idea that Billy McFarland, the guy in charge of the doomed Fyre Festival, is a sociopath.

Just looking at the trailer for Extremely Wicked, the mood in it seems kind of playful and romantic. They have the heart-throb Zac Efron playing Ted Bundy and they show how he loves his girlfriend Liz and how much of a father figure he is. Meanwhile, he’s the most notorious serial killer of all time and a true psychopath.

If Bundy were alive today, he would be loving the attention he’s receiving because that’s what he fed off during his public trials in the 70’s.

This is not to say that the shows and documentaries are not interesting, because they are. As a psychology major with a criminology minor, Ted Bundy is my favourite serial killer to study. His case is one of the most interesting in the world and one of the most famous. But no one really seems to see how dangerous of a monster he really was.

The documentary did an excellent job showing his dark side, but there were details that were missing that show how dark he really was. For example, in The Devil’s Defender, Browne says that Bundy told him he killed over 100 women and a man; way more than the reported 35.

In the biography documentary on him, they explain that he was led to believe his mother was actually his sister for the first 20 years of his life. He would find out the truth after his girlfriend broke up with him right before he went on his murderous rampage.

I also found it clever that Netflix released The Ted Bundy Tapes on Jan. 24, the 30-year anniversary of his execution in Florida.

As much as I love psychopathy, this is not a good social trend. Not only are people going to be accusing everyone and their brother of being psychopaths, but there is also room for people to start copying what they saw.

I bet that in the next year, there will be copycat crimes of Ted Bundy in the US. There will be someone pretending to be injured and they lure young women to their cars and kill them.

There seemed to be a spike in school shootings after it was over reported by the news. Just imagine what could happen when serial killers are over reported and seen as entertainment.

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