Everything you've ever wanted to know about True Crime fans

Or at least everything we do know

I get asked a lot about true crime fans. Why do people like true crime? Are women really more likely to listen to or watch true crime? Is it unhealthy to binge watch every new true crime docuseries on Netflix?

Much like research on horror fans, empirical research on true crime fans is surprisingly sparse. In fact, there’s really only one empirical paper that has looked at the psychology of true crime fans, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

Perhaps the richest source of information about true crime fans comes from a study of 2000 true crime fans conducted by OnePoll for SWNS. Some of the key results were reported on, but the survey included many questions that didn’t make it into the news.

Luckily, I was a consultant for this study, so I have access to all of the data that wasn’t covered by newspapers. It doesn’t have all the data I’d like it to have, but there are some pretty interesting results that I haven’t seen elsewhere.

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Who are true crime fans?

First I’d like to know: How many of you reading this are true crime fans?

For the OnePoll survey, the respondents had to indicate that they “enjoy watching/listening to true crime.” That means these data aren’t just from mega-fans, but instead represent your average true crime fan. So, who are true crime fans?

I was a bit surprised by the age breakdown.