True crime is Germany’s most popular media genre. Alongside popular TV series and podcasts, true crime is now everywhere in our TikTok feeds: as storytimes, documentary-style image collections, and as creepy “get ready with me” videos, where content creators will chat about violence and unsolved cases while applying a light daytime makeup.
Joining forces with Anne Kunze, a crime reporter and podcaster for Germany’s most popular true crime podcast Zeit Verbrechen, Fashion the Gaze sets out to explore the origins of this fascination with real-life crime cases, and analyse the interplay between the pleasures of voyeurism, pop culture self-help, and the commercial exploitation of the victims. Why are nearly 93% of true crime podcast listeners female, and what makes true crime so compatible with podcasts and with TikTok?