Since its release, the series Dahmer-Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story ranked #1 on Netflix’s Top 10 three straight weeks in a row, from September 19 to October 9. 

Viewers are both fascinated and appalled by serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer’s heinous crimes, but many are exploring, with sickening levels of curiosity and “humor” on platforms like TikTok and Twitter. 

Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer was a serial killer from Milwaukee, Wisconsin who claimed 17 victims from 1978-1991. The series focuses on the victim’s perspective of his crimes, and the shortcomings of the police force that had allowed him to continue slaughtering for years.

As the show increases in popularity, there has been an increasing number of alarming jokes, references, and even Tiktok challenges referencing and even idolizing Dahmer and his crimes. One horrifying trend, in particular, is of Tiktok users posting their reactions to Dahmer’s gruesome polaroid photos of his victims being dismembered, as well as showing and reacting to gory clips from the show. 

Senior Thaly Cadet is an avid fan of true crime and thriller media and thinks, “ the fact that they [users] show the polaroids of Jeffrey Dahmer’s victims on Tiktok, is a violation right there…” she said.

 She also recounted the first time she had seen the photos. 

“When I first heard about his case … I didn’t search up his victims, I just searched up ‘Jeffrey Dahmer’. And I went on ‘images’, and I saw the polaroids by mistake,” she said.

The polaroids in question from Tiktok have also appeared when searching the serial killer on Google Images even before the trend had started. 

Not only does she disapprove of the trend, but she also expressed concern for the lack of viewer discretion and the damaging effects of being unexpectedly exposed to graphic images.

“Every time I think about Jeffrey Dahmer, I think about one of his victims and that freaks me out. That’s in my head. But it doesn’t mess me up. But if someone else was to do the same thing I did, you don’t know the impact it would have on someone else, for you to just show it blatantly like that,” she said.

Cadet also highlighted the lack of sensitivity and empathy these users have for the murder victims and their families, stressing that they would “never, ever be alive [again]”, and that people needed to show more respect for their gruesome deaths.

“ I lost someone, and I realized ‘this is so real, this is no joke.’ I feel like you have to go through grief to understand what people are going through. When you go through it, you’ll think ‘oh I understand' and have sympathy,” she stated.

Romaine also expressed concern for the idolization of serial killers by film and society by comparing the Netflix show to Zac Efron’s portrayal of Ted Bundy.

“It almost glorifies it because you have this celebrity who is portraying them, and people now are becoming fanatics over a person who did some pretty awful things, so that’s definitely not great. I mean, it's pretty cool to see people being interested in the topic but not great to be kind of a fanatic in the wrong way,” she said. 

Romaine said another reason for the popularity of these shows can be attributed to the idea that bad news sparks conversations and human curiosity. 

“I think along the same lines, like bad things or controversial things, or talking about serial killers and the awful things they did which draws more people to it because it's so out of the norm and you're so intrigued by it, but it definitely has repercussions,” she said.

Both Cadet and Romaine believe that either Netflix or Tiktok should institute censorship (removing content) or viewer discretion warnings surrounding particularly graphic content, either related to the show or true evidence from his crimes. 

 Romaine adds that there are times when the public is not given a lot of information on criminal activity, and others when an abundance of information may be inappropriate 

“I think sometimes we are given too much information because it can lead to, again, people being obsessed, copycats, things like that, which we definitely don’t want," she said.

She focuses on the lack of responsibility from Tiktok as a social media platform.

“It seems like just in general Tiktok doesn’t really take things down but maybe, especially if it's making the victims and their families uncomfortable you’d definitely think that they’d want to step in and remove those videos, or reels, whatever they are, to make the people who actually suffered from this not feel uncomfortable,” said Romaine.

On the other hand, Thaly Cadet insinuates that while Netflix contains other true crime content featuring serial killers such as John Wayne Gacy and Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer’s case is far more gruesome and violent than the likes of them and therefore requires more restrictions.

“The stuff that Jeffrey Dahmer  did, is the most bone-chilling killing; the worst out of all of them…”

Cadet calls on Netflix to introduce viewer discretion warnings;

“Kind of like how Instagram has the thing when there’s an inappropriate video of someone getting killed or beat up. When it says ‘warning: this video is graphic’, you know? I don’t know, something like that.”

Despite the ethical hesitation, it is unlikely that Netflix will drop the show due to its high ratings, leaving viewers to decide whether or not to continue watching.