“GRANDMA LOCKED ME in an oven at 230 degrees when I was just 21 months old,” recounts an uncanny deepfake resemblance of Rody Marie, she recalls being hungry and crying incessantly, which reportedly led her grandmother to place her in an oven, resulting in her tragic death.

Another video shows six years old Carl Newton Mahan explaining how he murdered his 8 year old friend Cecil. “I am the youngest murderer in history,” a creepy computer generated voice sounds off. “I climbed up on a chair, grabbed my dad’s gun and ran back to Cecil’s house with the gun. When I got there, I said “now I’m going to kill you and shot her,” the video eerily ends.

Another channel brings to life a famous child murder victim—Elisa Izquierdo, a six-year-old girl who was murdered by her abusive mother in 1995, and Star Hobson, a one-year-old murdered by her mother’s girlfriend in 2020.

While deepfakes have existed for a while now, causing political unrest and inciting violence. Technological advancements are here to terrorise you and keep you awake. A bizarre bone-chilling trend has taken over TikTok.

Videos on Tiktok, which generally have no content warning beforehand feature a disturbingly real looking victim of a true crime speaking about the details of their gruesome death and their ordeal before it.

With the advent of hyper realistic text to image, GAN and text to speech models, true crime fanatics can not only create a creepy experience, they can max it out by including the gory details as well.

The baby in the video is also an AI-generated creation. While the story is factual to an extent, the creators behind these videos take creative liberties. Specifically, the victim in the actual case was named Royalty Marie, not Rody Marie. Tragically, Royalty Marie, a 20-month-old Black child, was discovered stabbed and burned in an oven at her grandmother’s residence in Mississippi in 2018. Her grandmother, Carolyn Jones, aged 48, was charged with first-degree murder. The victim was also not white as shown in the TikTok video.

The changes are likely to escape TikTok guidelines and avoid scrutiny but stay close to the name, age and events, as they followed. However, a tikTok account which goes by @truestorynow—had 50,000 followers and posted videos of victims and murderers telling their stories has now been blocked by TikTok 

But Where Does This Truly Stop?

This emerging trend has become a part of the overarching true-crime fandom. Critics of true crime have condemned the consumption of real-life traumatic events for pure entertainment and joy. However with the explosion, exposure and easy access to AI technology which keeps becoming hyper realistic with each passing day, there’s no question about its increasing popularity—-rather the right question is how creepier and horrific will the convergence of true crime and AI become.

These armchair sleuth-hounds and their obsession merging with AI technology will keep re-traumatising the people who were close to these victims. And lack of regulation to deal with such content doesn’t help either.

Criminal Justice experts think that this growing trend is designed to trigger strong emotional reaction, because that is a sure-shot way to get clicks.

“They seem designed to trigger strong emotional reactions, because it’s the surest-fire way to get clicks and likes. It’s uncomfortable to watch, but I think that might be the point,” Paul Bleakley, assistant professor in criminal justice at the University of New Haven told the Rolling Stone

The people who run these accounts not only tell the stories of well-known child murder victims, such as Elisa Izquierdo and Star Hobson, but adult murder victims like George Floyd and JFK aswell. 

Critics also argue that true crime desensitises audiences to horrendous crimes, but others believe that people can distinguish between reality and fiction and that being more informed about crime can actually reduce fear.

For a long time, acts of real-life violence have been presented to the public through various mediums, from crime publications to investigative documentaries. However, the true crime genre has gained more recognition only recently. 

Where Does This Stop?

The true crime genre has gained popularity by delving into real-life acts of violence and exposing them to the public. While it has advantages like re-evaluating flawed legal trials and promoting critical thinking, the genre often exploits suffering, adheres to predetermined narratives, prioritises ratings over ethics, and manipulates public opinion.

There’s also a debate of whether popular culture inspires real-life crimes or if it’s the other way around.

Makers of the popular show based on Dexter Morgan were accused of inspiring real-life crimes due to his likable portrayal as a killer in the Dexter series. 

True Crime as a genre has grown like wildfire. However these TikTok videos garnering millions of views is not odd, as such shows and movies have been topping all kinds of charts.

Netflix’s ‘Making a murder’ has been downloaded over 211 million times, while it was also the most binged TV show in 2018. There are three dedicated true crime TV channels in the UK reaching over five million viewers per month. 

Experts believe that the fascination with violent and macabre true crime stories can be attributed to the puzzle-like nature of these stories, which engage our attention and provide a sense of excitement. 

The wild popularity of true crime can also be attributed to the appeal of having a safe way to explore dark aspects of human behavior and learn from terrible things without being in real danger.

Another thing which stands out is that women make up a significant portion of the audience for true crime, with studies showing that women are the largest consumers of true crime books and podcasts. This could be due to the intrigue surrounding dangerous figures and the romanticisation of serial killers, which can be more appealing to some women.

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