In the annals of modern decadence, few spectacles rival CrimeCon’s recent descent from lurid spectacle to earnest wake. The gathering, which once served as a carnival for rubberneckers who fetishise the grisly details of murder, has apparently discovered a conscience. Panels now feature victims’ families speaking not of forensic minutiae, but of the hollow ache that follows a life severed by violence. This is a curious evolution: the vultures have turned to prayer.
One cannot help but draw parallels to the Victorian cult of mourning, where widows wore jet jewellery for years and death portraits adorned mantelpieces. But where Victorians draped their grief in ritual propriety, CrimeCon attendees weaponise empathy as a badge of moral superiority. They crowd into conference rooms to weep with strangers, then return to the exhibit hall to purchase serial-killer trading cards. The juxtaposition is grotesque, yet utterly of our time.
This is the age of performative sentiment. We have transformed trauma into content, and catharsis into commerce. The intellectual decadence here is staggering: we have run out of authentic experiences, so we borrow others’ most intimate agonies. The true crime obsession, once a guilty pleasure, now masquerades as social justice. Attendees congratulate themselves for ‘bearing witness’ while their Netflix queues bulge with docuseries.
And yet, there is something undeniably human in this clumsy grappling with mortality. The Fall of Rome saw citizens flock to gladiator games, then to Christian martyrdoms for the same thrill. Today, we seek the same frisson in the tearful testimony of a mother whose daughter was abducted. We are no better, only more self-aware, and therefore more contemptible. CrimeCon’s turn toward grief may be a sign of residual decency, or it may be the most sophisticated form of rubbernecking yet invented. I suspect the latter. But then, I am a contrarian by trade.
