Trading true crime for books
Four months ago, after building my YouTube channel to over 40k subscribers and my TikTok to 23k, I pulled the pin on everything.
Maybe it was when the nauseating Netflix adaptation Dahmer was released? Or maybe it was when Etsy began recommending disgusting merchandise that romanticised the worst of the worst serial killers? Perhaps it was when I started cracking the system for what would make a TikTok go viral and wrack up millions of views. Most likely, it was all of the above. And it was definitely the moment I realised I was about to reach out to a complete stranger to ask to interview him about his dead sister and niece.
It’s hard to pinpoint the moment that true crime went from “interesting” and “exciting”, to “nauseating” and “guilt-inducing”.
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(these are so fucked and anyone purchasing/wearing this shit deserves jail time.)
For four years, I slaved away in my spare time outside of my day job, painstakingly researching, scripting, filming, editing and publishing new true crime content on YouTube and TikTok.
Video scripts would be a minimum of 5000 words which would result in a roughly 45 minute-long video.
Once they were live, I could enjoy about 3 seconds of relief and joy at having successfully completed another case, before the inevitable dread of having to get back on the treadmill and do it all over again next week. I didn’t even like it. It wasn’t fun, I didn’t enjoy it and the whole damn thing just felt like a chore.
Horrible and sickening events lost meaning to me, and instead became fodder for my budding career as a “true crime YouTuber”. Gross.
I had always had an internal conflict about my role in true crime content. To a point, I enjoyed consuming it and I liked the attention I received as a creator (hey, I’m just being honest here). But I did not feel great about what I was doing and how I was exploiting a family’s worst pain and suffering ever for my own personal gain.
A lot of true crime content creators claim they’re doing it to “raise awareness” or some bullshit. I think that is cowardly. If we were truly doing it to raise awareness, we would start charities or partner with charities. Anyone who says anything like that is lying to themselves about their true intentions.
I had to get reeeeaaallll honest with myself about why I was really doing it before I could acknowledge that I was contributing to a culture I did not like, that might be harming people, and that this path did not align with my values or who I wanted to be as a person.
So in February 2024, I made the enormous decision to quit true crime.
After four years spent building up my persona as a true crime YouTuber and TikToker, with an impressive body of work spanning over 20 episodes at least 45 minutes long, what I thought was going to become my life’s work and ultimate career, now gave me the ick. Big time.
A lot of people thought I was having some sort of breakdown when I announced I was quitting my channel.
I didn’t really have a plan. All I knew is that I wanted out from the genre for good. If you want to hear the full story, I explain the whole saga and the tipping point in this video.
Do I regret it?
Fuck no!
It’s been four months since I quit and incredibly, both my YouTube channel and TikTok account have continued to grow despite my lack of interaction with either accounts or new content.
Instead, I found something so much better, so much more rewarding and completely free of guilt to throw myself into: Bookstagram.
I started posting on this account on March 1, 2024. What started out as a knee-jerk reaction for requiring some sort of creative content outlet, has blossomed into the most fulfilling and exciting endeavours yet.
There have also been a few unexpected outcomes from this pivot that I could never have foreseen.
I am reading more than I ever have. Good shit too.
Being surrounded by books, learning of new books and talking about books has meant I have a tbr stack taller than me, and I am proudly chugging along through it with gay abandon.
It’s only six months into the year and I have read 37 books so far. That may not sound like a lot to those of you beasts who smash through 200+ each year but for me, that is a personal record. Normally I’m lucky to hit 60, and my reading goal this year was 45. To have reached 37 this soon into the year is huge for me, and they’re not 37 crappy books either.
I’ve had one of the richest, most inspiring years of reading with the likes of The Secret History by Donna Tartt, Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors and Sunburn by Chloe Michelle Howarth.
I have made new bookish friends.
Friends that I have gone on to see and hang out with in real life. I’ve also developed a confidence around talking to other bookish people at events and locations because I know there’s a shared understanding among us. For some reason, I don’t feel shy or nervous about talking too much or sounding stupid. I feel like I can trust these people who share the same passion for my very favourite activity in the world: reading.
I’m writing! For fun!!
This one is kinda huge.
Those that know me know I’ve always been a bit of a writer my whole life. I’ve always been drawn to stories and sharing my unsolicited opinion.
But my passion and love of writing was destroyed when I went to uni to study journalism in 2011. It took years and years to get it back again in 2018. And then I promptly went on to kill it once more when I thought it was a good idea to make it my job by being a copywriter in 2019.
Now, finally, in 2024 I have started to share my thoughts again.
This Substack is one of those outlets, and I know that everything I’ve posted so far (including this post) is terrible and largely just incoherent rambling, I feel that the practise of writing, however bad, is a good thing. Anything that keeps the flow of words happening is a positive.
I’ve also started working on a couple of different manuscripts. Also horrid and very much in the drafting stages but again, words are coming and nothing pleases me more.
I really really really like making content about books.
I never ever get tired of talking about books. I will read for as long as I am able in this life, and I will never not want to yap at any given chance, about my most recent read.
No one is getting hurt by bookish content (unless you like If We Were Villains in which case, trigger warning for the scathing review I made. I don’t apologise either! That book is trash!). It is pure, wholesome and fulfilling, and unlike true crime where it felt like a depressing slog constantly, book content fills my cup rather than drains it. AND, I got sent a free book the other day by Penguin?! Best day ever?!
Anyway, I guess all of this is a long-winded way to say that quitting true crime and reinventing myself was the best decision I ever made. Go with your instincts etc etc.
I’m looking forward to adding new cool things to my list of cool Bookstagram discoveries.