From ancient times humans have been fascinated by cruelty, violence and horror. Whether it’s crowds packing the Colosseum in Ancient Rome to watch gladiators hack each other to pieces, or audiences gathering in Shakespeare’s Globe Theater to watch tragic plays about love, betrayal and death, humans have always been drawn to dark topics in one form or another. The term “hybristophilia” is used to characterize someone having sexual interest or attraction to those who commit crimes, and a portion of our society falls into that category. Whether it’s an actual person or someone fictional, the question that is rarely asked is this: Why? Why romanticize something morally, ethically or otherwise…bad?

One phenomenon that may contribute to this urge is the act of being blinded by one’s appearance, thus often ignoring their ugly actions, which is also known as pretty privilege. No matter how terrible a person or behavior is, the ideal of attractive looks can quickly become the only thing that matters. BookTok, a niche network of users on the social media app TikTok who discuss books and their characters, has become a platform for revealing the broad spectrum of the morally wrong being romanticized. These bad characters get praised because of the alluring descriptions of their physical appearance. By making them attractive, arguably as a lazy shorthand for making the character complex, it allows the readers to excuse their horrific and/or toxic actions—or worse, see those actions as appealing.

The novel series “You” by Caroline Kepnes, which was also adapted into a hit Netflix show, is a good example of this. In this story, Joe Goldberg stalks a girl, Guinevere Beck, whom he’s ‘head over heels’ for, and kills anyone who gets in his way. While this is insanely creepy, a concerning number of social media users found this to be “hot” and expressed a desire for someone who would be as obsessed and loyal as Joe. Another book that many people are familiar with is “365 Days” by Blanka Lipińska. It follows Don Massimo Torricelli, who is already involved with a violent crime, kidnapping a girl named Laura Biel and holding her hostage. He threatens to hurt her family if she tries to escape and is very controlling towards her. When this was released and got a lot of attention, readers (primarily BookTokers) liked and empathized with Don despite him murdering, kidnapping and committing sexual assault.

“As someone who’s interested in history and anthropology, I can say that on the one hand I know that it’s part of a long line of fascination with things that are taboo—it seems only natural for humans to want to push the envelope and escape into a world that is different from our mundane, day-to-day lives,” Columbia Heights High School (CHHS) Psychology teacher Mr. Michael Prellwitz said. “On the other hand, I do understand the concern of crossing the line into glorifying or celebrating negative behavior. It’s got to be a balance. You’re never going to stop human beings from being curious and seeking out taboo topics—it’s just part of our nature. If we can have these follow-up questions and conversations, it might help us separate the fantasy from the reality and make for a healthier way of engaging in these topics.”

Along with romanticizing bad book “tropes,” actual murderers in history have gotten a concerning “glow-up.” In September of 2022, the Jeffery Dahmer docuseries “Monster: The Dahmer Story” was released on Netflix. It became a massive hit within 60 days after hitting one billion hours viewed. While Dahmer becomes a disturbed serial killer in the narrative, that didn’t stop some of the viewers from finding him attractive. Evan Peters (“American Horror Story”) scored a lot of attention because of this role, turning the average-looking Milwaukee murderer into a chiseled, jacked sex symbol. Instead of people watching the show to learn the history of Dahmer’s tragic descent into madness, many flocked to watch it because of his looks. This slowly progressed as people started to admit that they found attraction towards the actual person, not just the actor.

Similarly, in 2019, Zac Efron starred in a biopic, “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile,” where he stepped into the role of infamous serial killer Ted Bundy. Once again, viewers romanticized Bundy due to the fact that he’s played by an attractive actor. Of course, the difference here is that people have always romanticized Bundy, whether it’s the actors who play him or the actual person. The real Bundy received several love letters from women while incarcerated stating they were attracted to his charm and physical appearance, despite him being a serial killer and rapist. Even in today’s society, that feeling hasn’t died down for some.

One person who is not as familiar in the media is Cameron Herrin. In 2021, Herrin was sentenced to 24 years in prison for illegally street racing and crashing into a mother and child, which resulted in their deaths. Even though Herrin’s reckless behavior cost two lives, people on social media vouched for him to remain free because of how attractive he is.
“I believe when people do absurd things like romanticizing anything bad, it reveals your true morals and how you represent yourself as a human being,” Lyric Crayton (9) said. “Nobody would want to be perceived in a bad way, especially by romanticizing anything that doesn’t show class, [so] I think we should make [this problem of] romanticizing things of that nature more known.”

It is clear that society is blinded by physical appearance and has been for a while. To many, it doesn’t matter who you are on the inside, but instead, what you look like on the outside. The smallest step we can take towards remedying is providing a conscious shift from fantasy to reality; acknowledge the red flags, don’t dismiss them even if you find them attractive and use that awareness to firmly establish your worth in all aspects of life.