Sarah Morris
Staff Writer
If you’re like me, at some point in your life you’ve been awake at an hour when it seems like you’re the only person alive, maybe around 4 a.m. The rest of the world is only about to get up, and where are you? On YouTube. You’ve probably been there for some time, scouring the web for anything worth watching since you’ve diagnosed yourself with temporary insomnia through WebMD. Then there is a moment. A perfect moment in which you discover the section of YouTube filled with documentaries, interviews and investigatory research about serial killers.
It’s almost like a disease you acquire as you watch video after video, until you reach that one. It’s the exact moment in which you have found the absolute worst thing about serial killer documentaries: you find the killer who is most like you. You’re watching a couple random videos, and then you’re only watching the videos for this person. You watch the interviews with his parents, or the news stories that explain the killer: a loner, an intellectual, maybe even a social maven. You start to understand the killer’s intentions, you don’t agree with them necessarily, but you see his emotional pain as the underlying torture that brought him to his murderous acts.
If you’re reading this thinking that it’s weird or creepy then you’re fooling yourself. I know you have a favorite serial killer too, and if you haven’t found him, he’s still out there. He’s the one who seems logical in his interviews, almost normal. Or even if he has some sort of weird psychiatric fetish, he’s sensitive and regretful or explanatory. He’s just like you, but instead of going to the gym, or dancing, or eating, or even getting drunk … he kills people. Which is not okay at all, but it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have human qualities to him. When I say that he’s your favorite, I don’t mean that you actually like him or would murder people yourself. It’s more a feeling that you found the evil side to yourself. Your favorite killer is someone who fascinates you to no end, and even worse, he makes you realize that anybody is capable of murder.