If Falling Asleep to True Crime Makes Me a Psychopath, Hand Me My Blanket
So apparently, according to TikTok, if you fall asleep to true crime, you’re a psychopath. Which means, congratulations to me, I’m a psychopath with a pillow and a blanket and the ability to nap through a Dateline double homicide like it’s white noise.
I don’t even remember how it started. Probably with Snapped, because who doesn’t love a show where women snap at their husbands and the narrator says it like it’s a shock? (“She was angry… and then she killed him.” Ground-breaking.) That spiralled into Dateline, Psychopedia, and now I’m fully paying for RedHanded on Patreon because apparently my disposable income is better spent funding two British women telling me about serial killers than on therapy.
I Don’t Do Horror, Just Murder
Here’s the kicker: I can’t watch horror. Ghosts? Absolutely not. Robots? No. Zombies? Hard pass. Stranger Things gave me nightmares, and that was just the Christmas lights bit. But real people murdering each other? Inject it directly into my ears.
It makes no sense, I know. Why listen to three hours about dismembered husbands at 4 am when you could, I don’t know, meditate? But here’s the truth: it relaxes me. I’ll lie there, earbuds in, perimenopausal rage simmering nicely, and within ten minutes of someone describing blood spatter, I’m out cold.
Maybe it’s comforting because I know I wouldn’t commit murder, partly because I am too lazy, partly because I wouldn’t last a day in prison. The no bills, no small talk thing sounds dreamy, but I’d fold the first time someone asked me to share a bunk. Plus, communal showers? Forget it. I like my freedom too much, which is why I’ve resisted all the useful “tips” I’ve learned — best murder weapon, where to bury a body, how to fake an alibi. My search history alone would get me locked up.
But there’s something strangely intriguing about following a person from a normal human being to downright depravity. Were they born with it? Maybe it’s Maybelline? Probably not, but True Crime takes the whole nature vs. nurture to an entirely new level. Are murders created or born, and exactly what does it take to tip someone over the edge to take another person’s life, commit unspeakable acts of torture or pull the biggest con ever – looking at you, Belle Gibson and Amanda Riley (the Scamanda podcast about Amanda Riley is amazing, give it a listen)?
Always the Life of the Party
Another thing I’ve learned from years of this: it’s always the person who was “the life and soul of the party” that ends up dead. The popular ones, the ones with big smiles and loads of friends. I, however, am a cranky hermit in my 40s, surrounded by unpredictable dogs and hormones. Netflix is never making The Woman Who Went to Bed at 9:30 and Hated Everyone, and frankly, that’s probably what’s kept me alive this long.
Everyone’s Doing It (So We’re All Psychopaths)
Before you judge me, the stats are on my side. True crime isn’t niche anymore — it’s mainstream. Roughly 42 million Americans — 16% of adults — listen to it every month, making it the top choice among women. In fact, weekly listeners have tripled in the last five years. Nearly a quarter of top podcasts are true crime.
And in the UK, it’s just as big: around 30% of podcast listeners tune into true crime monthly, making it the second most popular genre here after sport. So, unless we’re all psychopaths, I think TikTok’s theory can be safely ignored.
Podcasts in general? Over 584 million people are listening worldwide this year. So me falling asleep to RedHanded isn’t weird. It’s normal. Which is far more unsettling, if you think about it.
My Ride-or-Die Podcasts
- RedHanded – Worth every Patreon penny. Two hosts, banter, and actual research.
- Snapped – My first true crime obsession. Nothing says Sunday like women losing it.
- Dateline – Keith Morrison’s voice makes me want to commit murder—just so I can hear him tell my life story in that signature dramatic drawl.
- Psychopedia – Brooke, aka Investigator Slater, is an absolutely outstanding storyteller and more than a little unhinged — now verified by her new Girl on Gore series.
So, Am I a Psychopath?
If I am, I’m a tired one. A psychopath who takes three-hour afternoon naps, rewinds episodes because I fell asleep halfway through the crime scene photos, and has an alarming amount of useless forensic knowledge for someone who still hasn’t folded the washing.
So no, I don’t think I’m a psychopath. I’m just a frazzled perimenopausal woman trying to drown out her own brain long enough to fall asleep. Some people drift off to whale music; I drift off to women being interviewed in orange jumpsuits. If that’s unhinged? Hand me my blanket and hit play.
