I occasionally bait “true crime” tumblr as a means of exposing idiocy for my own amusement.  The denizens therein have an unhealthy obsession with serial killers and other unsavory types.  They come up with the most moronic of tumblr handles to glorify and idolize these demons of society and they see nothing wrong in obsessing over every detail of the crimes this horrid people have committed.  When they are criticized for essentially taking pleasure in the pain of others, they recoil.  “That would be wrong,” they say, “I merely appreciate the minds that were involved.”  They want to be as close to the bloody vignettes as possible without owning them.  They don’t want to admit that which lurks in every human mind: a love for the macabre and deadly.  This irritates me on several fronts.  I am castigated for my antisocial alignment, though I know the difference between thought and deed.  It also exposes a particular problem in this age of discourse: tolerance of the trash as a means of ensuring that everyone has a voice at the table.  If you don’t like your metaphorical countrymen and the image that they impose on your own, you have a responsibility to silence them just as they have a responsibility to fight back if they feel their cause is just.

The hypocrisy amazes me.  The antisocial is often with the most vivid and disturbing of thoughts.  They are compulsive.  I do not believe that an antisocial exists that does not dream of the sacred dance of life and death on a daily basis.  Yet, if we relish those thoughts vis-a-vis the lives of others, as those true crime aficionados do, then it is acceptable.  It is one thing to dream of life and death by proxy, it is another to imagine those lurid scenes playing out in one’s head without such a nudge – or so we are taught.  “We aren’t like those people,” they say, yet their minds gravitate toward the same places.  Stop throwing me into the river with shoes made of concrete.  We are all animals.

The true crime “fandom” that exists throughout the world is also indicative of a larger problem.  In this age of multiculturalism, we allow all to speak indefinitely even if their voices are clearly false.  I believe that everyone has a right to speak.  Not everyone makes use of that privilege in a way to better themselves or others, though.  It is the responsibility of the enlightened to silence those that are unworthy of speaking.  Stereotypes are often born in generalities that are true.  In the case of the true crime section of the world, we see needless hero worshipping of those that have no redeeming qualities.  Thus, many believe that the totality of that fandom engages in such behavior.  This legitimizes the hypocrisy I mentioned earlier in this post.  I’m often considered abrasive, even to my own kind (be they transgender, antisocial, psychopathic, whatever), because I do not wish to be defined by the more unsavory and unintelligent that walk among us.  Of course, there is a certain cloak and dagger element as I control the image that I present, but in the name of removing stereotypes, it is my responsibility to wish congruent to my actions.

We are all animals.  We all have impure thoughts and many of us have impure deeds.  There is a certain level of politics involved in ensuring that the images we present are reflective of how we wish to be perceived.  To eliminate stigma, we all have the responsibility to engage in difficult discourse that may be mortally damaging to those that are unworthy of speaking.  This is reality.  I am unapologetic in my desire to silence my kind and others that do not honor my own narrative.  I owe this to myself and I owe it to those animals that know how to speak and speak wisely.