Warning: This article discusses topics that may be distressing or triggering to readers.

It’s hard to scroll through social media on your phone without a mention of true crime. It almost seems as though Netflix is releasing a new true crime series every week, keeping social media’s obsession rife. Netflix’s latest docu-drama, DAHMER – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, is no exception. Starring Evan Peters, the series follows Jeffrey Dahmer from his pursuits of the 17 young men (most were POC and some underage) that he killed, assaulted, and dismembered up to his eventual arrest and prosecution. Although, at the time of writing, the series has topped Netflix’s streaming charts since its September 21 release, it has caused waves of controversy, fueled by Dahmer’s surviving victims and their families. 

Several family members have spoken out, each claiming that neither Netflix or the show’s creator had contacted or asked for their permission to use their stories. Eric Perry, cousin of victim Errol Lindsey, tweeted that the show is “retraumatizing over and over again, and for what? How many movies/shows/documentaries do we need?” He follows up saying “recreating my cousin having an emotional breakdown in court in the face of the man who tortured and murdered her brother is WILD.” 

In fact, Errol Lindey’s sister Rita Isbell, whose emotional testimony was recreated in the show, wrote a personal essay for Insider stating that the show “brought back all the emotions [she] was feeling back then.” She added that she didn’t understand why at least a portion of the show’s profit wasn’t donated to the family members: “If the show benefitted them in some way, it wouldn’t feel so harsh and careless…It’s sad that they’re making money off of this tragedy. That’s just greed.”

When asked if the show brings back any horrible memories in an interview with Inside Edition, surviving Dahmer sexual assault victim Billy Joe Capshaw asserts, “Yes, it does. I have been through hell because of this one person.”

 Dashawn Barnes, who portrayed Rita Isbell in the series, tweeted that “the victims weren’t an afterthought, but their humanity and perspectives were reflected in this series.” Despite the creator's intentions, true crime content makes it nearly impossible to create a product that doesn’t re-victimize the victims or exploit their trauma for a profit. These stories are so much more than TV show drama; real people are still affected by these projects. 

In a promotional video for the show, Evan Peters said that the show is “not just about him and his backstory: it’s the repercussions, it’s how society and our system failed to stop him multiple times because of racism, homophobia.” To its credit, the show does call out the Milwaukee police’s failure to acknowledge that the missing queer young men of color were victims. The show highlights this institutionalized racism and homophobia as reasons that the police didn’t realize that Dahmer was a serial killer despite his neighbors repeatedly calling the police and FBI to alert them of Dahmer’s suspicious behavior. 

But as the title suggests, the show’s lens is mostly focused on Dahmer himself instead of pointing the lens at the victims like the creators suggested. How different and fresh would the show have looked if the show centered around the Sinthasomphone family, or the Lindsey-Isbells? Instead of Dahmer being the “hero” of his own story, he would be out on the edges like his working class, POC victims have all these years. A change in perspective would have made this a unique, refreshing and potentially more interesting story, instead of a retread of a story that's been told multiple times before and glorifies Dahmer himself.

More controversy erupted over lead actor Evan Peters. A large number of Peters’ fans are “thirsting” after Peters as Dahmer, and even Dahmer himself. Several videos and tweets were made calling Dahmer “hot” and stating that he “could’ve lured” them into his apartment. Some even expressed sympathy for Dahmer.  One Tik Tok user commented “How am I supposed to hate Jeffrey Dahmer if Evan Peters is making him so attractive?” This romantic obsession with serial killers has existed for a long time, with serial killers like Richard Ramirez receiving fan mail in prison and Ted Bundy having fans who attended his trial to support him and even sent him marriage proposals. With this history of serial killer romanticization, it is even more upsetting that conventionally attractive actors are cast as serial killers, like Peters in DAHMER, Ross Lynch in My Friend Dahmer, and Zac Efron as Ted Bundy in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile. These casting decisions lead to many people, mainly young girls, lusting after these versions of the killers on social media, and even the non-fictionalized versions of these people. The attraction to Evan Peters’ Dahmer is extremely disrespectful to the families of the victims and the victims themselves. It is quite frankly disgusting to lust after a serial killer, especially one who brutalized mainly minorities. As one Twitter user so eloquently writes, “if you’re thirsting over the actual Dahmer pls go touch some grass and find god.” 

Although the popularity of true crime is unlikely to change in the next couple of years, the way that these stories are told should. With the permission of and focus on the victims and their families, the show just might actually be worth watching. However, the series’ tired viewpoint, glorification of Dahmer, questionable fan reception, and exploitation of the victims’ trauma answers the age old question: “Do victims ever get justice?” Not in this show.