Dahmer: An Assessment of Cultural Obsession

By now, most people have heard of or watched the Netflix series on Jeffrey Dahmer, the notorious American serial killer. There have been many think pieces written on Dahmer and his pathology, and the show itself does not shy away from exploring the "insanity" defence considered by his attorney. As a psychologist, though not Dahmer's psychologist, the more compelling question is not about Dahmer himself. It is about us, and the cultural obsession he inspired.

Why serial killers grip the public imagination

This is not the first time a serial killer has captured collective attention. Ted Bundy experienced a similar period of fascination when the Ted Bundy Tapes were released in 2019. What is particularly striking, though, is that both Bundy and Dahmer attracted a very specific kind of attention: a subset of the public finding them romantically appealing. That warrants some genuine psychological inquiry.

The psychology of humanising the harmful

The Netflix series presented Dahmer as someone genuinely longing for love and belonging, a tragic figure unable to find the companionship he desired. Paired with portrayals of his reported charm and humour, and performed by a skilled actor, it is not difficult to see why audiences might relate to him. After all, who does not understand the feeling of wanting connection and being unable to find it?

This resonance is amplified by the current cultural moment. We live in an era of growing awareness around mental health, adverse childhood experiences, and the long-term effects of neglect and abuse. Dahmer's childhood, as explored in the series, speaks directly to these pain points in the cultural zeitgeist. Netflix understood this precisely, and built a narrative that invites empathy in ways that bypass the reality of his actions.

Cognitive bias and the halo effect

The halo effect refers to the tendency for positive impressions of a person in one area to influence our judgement of them in other areas. When we see a person portrayed as attractive, funny, and complex, we instinctively associate those qualities with goodness and safety. The Dahmer series plays directly on this bias. Seeing a serial killer portrayed sympathetically by a beloved actor makes it cognitively easy to slide toward viewing him as a good person, even while knowing the facts of what he did.

It is also notable that the fans who wrote to Dahmer, and to other serial killers before him, were overwhelmingly women. Women also consume the majority of true crime content. One hypothesis considers gender role expectations: the social conditioning that encourages women to be understanding, forgiving, and nurturing, alongside messages that it is their responsibility to care for troubled men. Dahmer's victims were overwhelmingly male, which may have created an unconscious sense of safety for female viewers that further facilitated attraction. Understanding how emotions can mislead us when we are not examining them critically is relevant here.

The distance between media and reality

Consuming serial killers through the media is nothing like actually encountering one. That distance allows us to experience the psychological intrigue without the visceral reality of the harm involved. It creates a kind of fictional safety that distorts our moral processing. Several human biases can line up simultaneously in these moments: the halo effect, empathy triggered by a relatable backstory, and the safety of viewing from behind a screen. The result is the kind of cultural response we saw with Dahmer. None of it reflects the true tragedy experienced by the victims and their families, who are all too often an afterthought in these conversations. Trauma rarely looks the way we imagine it does, and the people living it deserve more than a footnote.

Final thoughts

Cultural obsessions are rarely random. They reflect something about the moment we are living in and the biases we carry, often without realising it. Examining what draws us to figures like Dahmer is not about excusing interest; it is about understanding it. If you are curious about how psychological biases shape your perceptions and responses, our team at Contemporary Psychology in St Kilda is here to help.