Graphic by Sunny Wei ‘23.
By Jada Jackson ’26
Staff Writer
Content warning: This article discusses murder, sexual assault and racialized violence.
One of Netflix’s newest releases, “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” starring Evan Peters, has quickly become popular. 196.2 million people tuned into the show’s premiere, making it a huge hit for the streaming network. Referenced in over 50 songs sung by recording artists from Kesha to J.Cole, Dahmer is no stranger to pop culture. According to IMDB, there are also numerous films based on American serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer’s life and several shows featuring him or a character inspired by his crimes on television. But why is the convicted killer and rapist of numerous Black and Brown gay men so popularized?
True crime has become a part of mainstream pop culture. Mass murders, cults and major crimes are occurrences society gawks at. Serenity Higgins-Laka ’26 expressed that“Jeffrey Dahmer has tons of documentaries and shows that in a weird way romanticize him, and that’s just not ok. As you know, he did some terrible, evil shit. There’s even people who fantasize about him and make fanfics.”
Currently, when looking up Dahmer’s name on popular fanfiction website Archive of Our Own, 116 results populate. This surpasses the need for the victims’ stories to be heard, and instead serves as a gross fetishization of an evil man. The pattern of recycling stories that traumatize victims “sucks because often the families of the victims are not informed or asked ahead of time … [and are therefore] constantly being confronted with the trauma,” Myrha-Lissa Chery ’23 emphasized.
The sister of Errol Lindsey, one of Dahmer’s victims, spoke out about the Netflix series to Insider, stating, “If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve thought it was me. … That’s why it felt like reliving it all over again,” Rita Isbel said. “It brought back all the emotions I was feeling back then.”
Is there any compassion for these victims? Are their voices being heard by the directors and actors who dramatize real, traumatizing events?
While Peters’ fan pages are thirsting over his portrayal, Kaliher Johnston ’26 sees it as “very yucky and exploitative, especially when it portrays serial killers as geniuses rather than actually unpacking police incompetence [and] privilege that allowed them to get away,” she shared. Dahmer was a man who used the gross neglect of the police to his own advantage. Rather than focusing on this, the show re-exposes victims and their families to trauma, all while viewers look on with carefree disregard or disgust.
The deaths of these men aren’t being properly mourned as a result of the show, and instead Dahmer is becoming a meme. Audiences are taking this series as an opportunity to laugh at the preventable death of 17 mostly gay Black and Brown men. The traumas of real people have become a media spectacle.
Peters isn’t the first major celebrity to portray a serial killer and consequently make the media go wild. Actors Ross Lynch and Zac Efron have taken their swing at portraying what Google suggests to be two of the “smartest” killers: Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy, respectively. Yet, does it matter? Does it matter how smart these men are or how cleverly they executed their murders? Sydney Driskell ’25 believes this media is “really invasive [and] shouldn’t be [the public’s] business.” Despite this, people continue to tune in to the very real and tragic deaths of society’s most vulnerable for entertainment. Jeffrey Dahmer is immortalized in these movies, shows, fanfictions and songs. His crimes live on, while the voices of his victims’ families are ignored.