today’s incoherent nap thought is that The Serial Killer is really some type of lichen. which is to say: it requires NOT ONLY a person who engages in the behavior of killing other people in a specific way. it crucially is an interaction between that person and social, cultural, etc concepts, media reactions, constructs about The Ultimate Criminal, & mental illness/trauma/cause & effect.
it’s an actually one of the best examples of a construct that’s SOOO specific to a certain time & place and yet we don’t see it like that because it’s OUR time and place (broadly). but it’s so important to see that The Serial Killer is a lichen. because it exposes almost everything else that is that too. who among us has not had a conversation about prison abolition which drags out this concept as some kind of proof that Some People Ontologically Need To Be Removed From Society! who along us has not witnessed people try to come up with some concrete list of Red Flags that someone may at some point BECOME The Serial Killer despite the fact that someone fundamentally hasn’t murdered someone until they engage in the behavior of murdering someone?
YOU KNOW?
it’s a lichen. it’s not one thing. it’s not. … you know. The Serial Killer is not a guy. it’s a bunch of stuff in the shape of a guy.
this post brought to you by all of the many distressing rubbernecking True Crime podcasts that spotify keeps fucking advertising to me