Why Do So Many Women Love True Crime?

Young women engage with true crime content at rates much higher than their male counterparts

Even when it’s not Halloween, Americans can’t get enough of true crime.

The genre has exploded in popularity, becoming the third-most-listened-to podcast category in the U.S. last year. It’s ubiquitous on YouTube explore pages, broadcast shows, and streaming services—last year, 15 out of the top 20 documentary titles on Netflix were true crime. Serial, the wildly popular podcast following the murder of Hae Min Lee and the wrongful conviction of her ex-boyfriend Adnan Syed, sparked the uptick in true crime content in 2014.

With over 300 million viewers downloading its first season, other shows inspired by Serial quickly grew. Crime Junkie, My Favorite Murder, and Bone Valley gained millions of listeners. On Netflix, titles like “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” and “Baby Reindeer” faced extreme backlash and even legal trouble for blurring the lines between fact and fiction, and sensationalizing victims’ stories. Dateline and 20/20 continue to be some of the most popular newsmagazine broadcasts today.

Regardless of the medium, it’s clear that Americans love a story weaving mystery and most often, murder—especially when it reflects a real-life case.

The true crime boom is particularly interesting because what men and women actually watch online sheds light on their experiences, what they find entertaining, and provides insight into the way they view the world. We spend much of our time on this Substack focused on what young men are doing online. But it’s also worth contrasting that to what young women watch for entertainment, especially when it informs how they view relationships with men.

Both men and women have been more drawn to true crime recently, but at different rates.

A 2024 YouGov poll found that women (61 percent) were more likely to watch true crime content than men (52 percent). There was an age split; adults under 65 years old were significantly more likely (61 percent) to consume true crime than those 65 or over (42 percent). More than half of U.S. adults agreed with statements about the genre’s benefits, such as making people “more vigilant and safety-conscious” and improving “understanding of the criminal justice system.”

These trends are even more apparent within the podcast medium. A 2023 Pew Research Study found that women are almost twice as likely as men to regularly consume true crime podcasts, at a rate of 44 percent versus 23 percent, and other reports estimate that a number as high as 80 percent of true crime listeners could be women. Data from Edison Podcast Metrics shows almost two in three listeners of Crime Junkie, the second most popular overall podcast in the U.S., are women, a trend that manifests among other top shows. Listeners also tend to be younger; 41 percent of podcast listeners aged 18 to 29 said they regularly listened to true crime, compared to just 15 percent of 65+ listeners.

It’s worth noting that several true crime podcasts are gaining traction among young men. Edison Podcast Metrics data reveals that among men ages 16-35, the MrBallen Podcast and Morbid jumped into the top 20 most-listened-to-shows in Q3 2025, a notable jump from their previous rankings in the 40-60s range. Nonetheless, comedy and sports continue to dominate the upper rankings for this demographic. In Q3 2025, only three of the top 25 shows for young men were true crime, contrasted to seven for women in the same age group—more than double the proportion.

This discrepancy is surprising, especially given that young women often tend to be the victims of the crimes covered by these series. Like other media coverage, true crime suffers from “missing white woman syndrome”—content disproportionately focuses on conventionally attractive, female, white victims. It’s confusing why so many women would want to hear stories that detail them as the victims of horrific—and often, graphic—events, let alone seek them out as a form of entertainment or decompression. Women also tend to be more disgusted than men at the thoughts of gory experiences and read less of other “violent” genres, like accounts of war. They also commit fewer violent crimes. So why are they so drawn to true crime specifically?

The answer is complicated.

One of the biggest reasons women find comfort in true crime is, ironically, to find ways to escape those crimes. In a series of 2010 studies published in Social Psychological and Personality Science, people were given the option to choose between two true crime novels: one whose summary included the protagonist employing a clever trick to escape the murderer, and one whose did not. Of the female participants, 71 percent chose the book that mentioned the use of an escape trick, a larger proportion than the male participants. Although the study examined only books, its implications likely extend across all true crime media: women are seeking practical defense knowledge.

This reasoning is also not surprising; women report fear of crime at rates three times higher than men, attributed to their lived experiences of both physical and sexual violence. The same fears that led to the notorious man or bear debate on TikTok at least partly explain women’s true crime consumption: a desire to be informed and alert, especially against potential attackers.

True crime stories also reflect patterns that women can watch out for in their lives. The same 2010 studies found that women were more likely to pick true crime novels that included some explanation of the killer’s psyche.

“Single women have told me that they look to true crime TV shows and podcasts for tips on how to protect themselves from attacks by strangers, as well as how to detect sociopathic “red flags” in the personalities and demeanor of single men they encounter,” writes Scott A. Bonn, Ph.D., for Psychology Today. “No woman wants to date or marry the next Ted Bundy.”

The fear of being attacked also naturally leads to empathy for the victims of true crime stories, and many young women see themselves reflected in them. While it isn’t necessarily comforting to hear about the murders, true crime provides a sense of closure, rejuvenating hope for an idealistic justice system that works as intended. There is extra comfort in an authentic case that was able to be resolved after inconveniences and dead ends, especially compared to the formulaic solves in fictionalized cop dramas and procedurals.

“Most of the true crime I watch reflects a black-and-white moral universe where victims ultimately get justice, even if it is delayed. In this closed world, modern law enforcement is competent and empathetic, and evidence from medical examiners and forensic scientists is taken seriously,” writes Jessica Grose, in an op-ed for the New York Times.

The opposite is also true.

Jes Skolnik, also for the New York Times, writes in another op-ed that she specifically prefers stories that don’t have a neat ending, reflecting on her own history with domestic violence. For her, the real-life aspect of the genre—that it’s rough, unfinished, and unsatisfying—is comforting in and of itself. She can also relate to the hosts of shows like My Favorite Murder, which weave in their own thoughts and vulnerabilities into their retellings. When shows get too calloused, she has to unsubscribe.

“Many true crime shows deal with unsolved cases or missing people who seemed to disappear in thin air, and even shows that take on solved cases often provide little in the way of definitive answers,” she says. “Those of us who have experienced violence and find refuge in true crime are looking not for closure but for empathy, for understanding, for a world that doesn’t turn its back on the fact that day-to-day violence exists, and that it is less freakish than banal.”

The 2010 studies found that women were more likely (59 percent) to choose true crime books that had female victims over those that had male victims, whereas men were evenly split. While all adults primarily watch true crime for entertainment and an interest in mysteries, the data implies that women’s connection to the genre in particular works differently. For all its controversies, the genre captures women in part because it mirrors the realities they face every day: the fear of violence, the need to understand danger, and a search for justice.