At CrimeCon, the annual gathering of true crime obsessives, British criminologists have issued a stern warning about the ethical line being crossed. When did tragedy become entertainment? The Victorians, at least, had the decency to privatise their mourning in black crepe and silent parlours.
Today, we parade our morbidity at conventions, trading gruesome details like baseball cards. This is not curiosity. This is intellectual decadence, a civilisation so bored with its own safety that it must feast on the suffering of others.
The criminologists are right: we are morally adrift, mistaking voyeurism for empathy. The Fall of Rome had its gladiators; we have CrimeCon. The line has not just been crossed; it has been erased by our collective appetite for the macabre.