True Crime & Humor
I've been listening to a lot of Last Podcast on the Left lately, mostly because when I'm scheduled over at our library that is currently going through renovations, that's seven hours of dusting books and so that is seven hours that Aurora can use to listen to her podcast. And despite the fact that my coworkers look at me kind of weird when I'm giggling in the fiction room and respond "Jonestown" when they ask me what I'm listening to, I am actually starting to look forward to those seven hour dusting days.
I'm a fan of true crime, even without the humor injected in like an ill-advised dose of heroin. I've put a lot of research into things like Columbine (I do have an excuse for that one: writing project), and dabbled in Gacy and Dahmer. And it has been pretty cool to be able to learn more about either incidents that I knew some about but never the details (Jonestown) or serial killers that I'd just missed (Robert Hanson).
I think that true crime does kind of lend itself to humor, especially if you've got guys as funny as the Last Podcast guys. There's an innate horror in true crime that even the best fictional horror movies can't replicate--just think about all of the horror movie villains that have taken a page out of the Ed Gein book of creepy (Leatherface, Norman Bates, Buffalo Bill). When you insert humor into the mix, when you make fun of the killers, you do take away some of their power. And it's funny. These guys are legitimately hilarious, but they're serious, too. When they drop the humor, you can tell how disgusted they are with some of the things that go on; I just finished their JonBenet Ramsey two-parter and the disgust they had for child beauty pageants was palpable.
Also, now I kind of seriously want one of the Carl Panzram Yacht Club patches they have on their shop, but that's a whole different deal.
I'm a fan of true crime, even without the humor injected in like an ill-advised dose of heroin. I've put a lot of research into things like Columbine (I do have an excuse for that one: writing project), and dabbled in Gacy and Dahmer. And it has been pretty cool to be able to learn more about either incidents that I knew some about but never the details (Jonestown) or serial killers that I'd just missed (Robert Hanson).
I think that true crime does kind of lend itself to humor, especially if you've got guys as funny as the Last Podcast guys. There's an innate horror in true crime that even the best fictional horror movies can't replicate--just think about all of the horror movie villains that have taken a page out of the Ed Gein book of creepy (Leatherface, Norman Bates, Buffalo Bill). When you insert humor into the mix, when you make fun of the killers, you do take away some of their power. And it's funny. These guys are legitimately hilarious, but they're serious, too. When they drop the humor, you can tell how disgusted they are with some of the things that go on; I just finished their JonBenet Ramsey two-parter and the disgust they had for child beauty pageants was palpable.
Also, now I kind of seriously want one of the Carl Panzram Yacht Club patches they have on their shop, but that's a whole different deal.
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