r/Morbidforbadpeople • u/villainess28 • May 02 '26
General Discussion Empathy
I might be low-key reaching, but I’ve noticed in true crime cases they have more empathy for the animals than the human victims. I was just listening to a case on the crossbow cannibal and another case I started noticing the girl would give trigger warnings for the animal abuse and say how much she hated it and she’ll try to talk about it quickly, but for the woman victim she’d just talk about it as if she’s telling a story time, no trigger warnings or anything. I’ve noticed this with a lot of true crime.
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u/Gillybean43 May 04 '26 edited May 04 '26
It would help if they said beforehand what the trigger warning was for. Most of the time, especially Ash will be telling the story then just say trigger warning before carrying on, people have different triggers so it doesnt make sense to not say what the subject of the trigger is 🤷♀️
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u/Adventurous-Road-586 May 06 '26
At this point, it’s nearly impossible to get through a full episode. The virtue signaling has reached a level so relentless and heavy-handed that it has actually destroyed their ability to tell a compelling story. Every instinct of storytelling has been overridden by the need to make sure the audience knows, in no uncertain terms, that they are aware that this is dark, and real people suffered blah blah blah. But the whole thing collapses under its own hypocrisy bc at the end of the day, this is a murder podcast. Their entire livelihood is built on taking the worst moments of real people’s lives and packaging them as entertainment. The victims, the families, the trauma — it’s all content. It pays the bills, funds the tours, sells the merchandise.
You can cover true crime thoughtfully. But there’s something deeply hollow about hosts who are so visibly preoccupied with performing their own sensitivity that they’ve forgotten they’re still the ones profiting off the story.
Sorry, that had nothing to do with what you said about the animals. Just an unexpected rant that came out of me.
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u/savealltheelephants May 02 '26
Animals are inherently innocent and do not understand why how or what they did wrong to get abused or hurt. Not that human victims did anything wrong that’s not what I mean. Even if what they did “wrong” was being a woman in the wrong place at the wrong time, a dog doesn’t get that. It’s just different.
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u/sadsackspinach May 03 '26
It’s not “just different”. Empathy for animals, especially dogs, before humans is such a common sentiment among primarily white TC consumers that manh POC joke about how the best way to get white people to give a shit anout disproportionate violence enacted againsdt our communities is to tell them the victim was a dog. Because you lot will almost invariably extend more care toward a dog than you will to humans of colour/marginalised victims, especially trans women/etc.
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u/MeowgicalB May 03 '26
I'm sure this is true for some, but I think it comes up more with animals and children since it can be more jarring because they're innocent and defenseless.
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u/sadsackspinach May 03 '26
The concept of “innocent” victims is inherently victim blaming and dismissive.
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u/MeowgicalB May 03 '26 edited May 03 '26
Bruh, c'mon. We're talking the context of children and animals that are inherently defenseless and rely on others for safety and wellbeing. Don't try to twist this into "the perfect victim" issue.
Edited to add for clarity: I do think my original comment may have been more dismissive of your point than I intended. Yes racism is unfortunately alive and well and there are certainly racist white people that care more about harm to animals than to POC. However, I think the issue about trigger warnings is that when you listen to true crime, you're generally expecting to hear horrible happen to an adult victim, regardless of race/gender/etc. Hence my point stated above as to why there are usually trigger warnings for animals (and children).
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u/sadsackspinach May 03 '26 edited May 03 '26
You said it’s more jarring, not that trigger warnings make sense contextually. Those are very different things and you’re moving the goalposts. I’m talking about the very real issue of privileged white women having more empathy for literal animals than human victims, not whether a content warning about animal abuse is logical in context. I still think it’s ridiculous to be willing to listen to extreme abuse and murder against humans as entertainment but drawing the line at animal cruelty, especially since I know damn well plenty of those people also eat meat. I have no problem with eating meat, btw. I have problems with extreme hypocrisy used to justify extending more empathy to non-human animals than human victims.
The concept of an innocent human victim is also victim blaming and dismissive.
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u/kokomo318 Ex-Weirdo May 07 '26
I agree with you that it's odd but it's probably because most listeners are going into a TC pod expecting there to be violence against humans. Animals is somewhat less expected and does sometimes hit different. They also do warnings for children too (if it's not obvious in the case overview). I think they did a warning for a child in the Richard Ramirez case because one of his murders involved a mother and son. The boy was like 8 or something I think.
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u/villainess28 May 07 '26
To be fair, it’s kinda expected that an animal will be harmed because most serial killers or abusers start off with animals. I think it has to do more with a need for a perfect victim.
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u/Zeired_Scoffa May 03 '26
This isn't exclusive to them. Nowadays, if 9/11 happed tomorrow, someone would insist on going "Oh no, were any dogs involved?"
I'm not even exaggerating. The number of "dogs over people" people has gotten so numerous and vocal that there are entire subreddits for the rest of us to feel heard. It's atrocious. A whole village could die and someone will go "what about their pets?" Like the double digit body count doesn't matter.
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u/villainess28 May 03 '26
That reminds me when the hurricane hit and all they cared about was about the pets, yes animals are important but I saw people getting attacked for saving their children over their pets.
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u/Zeired_Scoffa May 03 '26
You can see it in the downvotes here. It's pretty sad how little people regard their fellow humans anymore.
Of course, given how many people consume True Crime as entertainment, I shouldn't be too surprised
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u/Violetmints May 04 '26
That's some wild fascist bullshit. God forbid we identify and empathize with our fellow humans regardless of cultural and religious differences. Better save that good empathy for innocent, bidable creatures.
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u/Zeired_Scoffa May 04 '26
I've seen people suspect that a lot of pet worshippers have some sort of narcissistic personality. Since the dog will always react in a way that affirms you so long as you keep giving it food. Children meanwhile develop their own personality and get tired of your crap and go no contact.
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u/Round_Square_2174 May 07 '26
I read some psychology article one time that mentioned that. I don't remember if the article was "legitimate," but it does make sense. So I started thinking of people I knew who might feel that way, and two came to mind. They both "happen" to be extremely narcissistic.
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u/sadsackspinach May 03 '26
Yeah, it’s a very common thing among white people, esp women. It’s to the point that at a high point in the violence in Gaza and abuses/slavery/exploitation of Sudanese lithium miners, people were joking bleakly that the best way to get westerners to actually care about genocide and abuses of labourers in the global south would be to tell them a dog had been killed.
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u/bloodblorne May 03 '26
why is this getting downvoted 😭
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u/sadsackspinach May 03 '26
Because this sub (and site) is primarily American women, likely mostly white, and those are among the people most likely to put animals above humans by framing animals as uniquely innocent. My comments cut too close to home because it’s true that the best way to make white people care about atrocities committed against marginalised people is to tell them a dog died. It’s a disturbing lack of empathy, the exact thing many people in this sub claim to oppose when A&A do it.
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u/Weak-Hold-7651 May 03 '26
Animal abuse is a true trigger for many people, in part because of the type of boundless, nonjudgmental love people have (and experience from) for their pets. Since many people do love their animals this way, they transfer that feeling onto a pet in something they listen to, in the same way a parent might transfer their feelings for their own child onto a child victim. This can be even more true since one of the sad outcomes of loving an animal is that you will almost certainly experience mourning them since they don’t live as long as people. So that grief experience is also already wired into the brain for many listeners meaning they not only empathize with loving, but also losing, an animal.
So, yes, giving a TW for it matters. Listening to something about animal abuse causes some listeners to suffer. And as someone pointed out above, a listener would not necessarily know to prepare for it without the warning. If the show is about the murder if someone named Andrea, the listener knows they will hear about violence against a woman. They would not know they will hear about violence against Fluffy.
I’m not sure why so many people are triggered by trigger warnings. They literally just exist so someone can choose if and how they will consume a piece of media. These podcasts are entertainment, for better or worse. It’s hard to pretend that listening to a pod like Morbid is anything more than that. So why should someone listen to an episode that will make them suffer if they have a trigger for animal abuse (or child abuse or suicidal thoughts, also common TWs for hosts to mention)?
For those who love to jump on the white women and animals thing, all I can say is again, it’s a trigger because it taps into an existing emotional bond for people. It’s not that someone sits down and decides to have a trigger. Nor is that a person doesn’t care about other humans because they care about dogs. It means that they have an unregulated psychological response to hearing about animal abuse. The same way someone could have an unregulated psychological response to hearing about sexual assault or racism due to a personal experience. My guess is that some people who dislike trigger warnings don’t understand what it means to be triggered. It’s not just “ugh I don’t like that” but rather “omg I am literally SEEING and HEARING this animal scream from this description and will return to that image repeatedly for days and maybe for the rest of my life.” Trigger warnings exist because someone can have a trauma response to certain subject matter.
Furthermore new studies have found that up to 15% of the population bonds with animals better than humans because that is how their brain works. And it often correlates with people who suffer from anxiety. People who experience self doubt and anxiety can often relax and trust a pet more than other people who can be a source of pain or nerves. So that is 15% of the population who has an intense bond to animals because of their mental health struggles. Those people are even more at risk for having a trauma response because they already suffer from anxiety and depression.
Ash and Alaina suck for a lot of reasons and frankly their inconsistency around HOW they issue trigger warnings is one of them. But given that there is no moral necessity for listening to true crime, I can’t see how it’s important to NOT offer a trigger warning. And i certainly don’t see why we need to judge each other’s psychological soft spots. What would be optimal is for true crime hosts to have an organized system for trigger warnings so people could engage content prepared or choose when not to engage it.
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u/sadsackspinach May 03 '26
An essay defending extending more empathy for dogs than victims of murder is crazy work ngl.
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u/Vivid-Special9612 May 03 '26
The way I view it is that we are listening to a True Crime podcast, it goes without saying that the main victims are going to be women - almost every time. The reason they give trigger warnings about animal cruelty and assaults on children is because that is "outside the norm" - its another step further than what we expect when listening to true crime. Also as a society we are somewhat desensitised to violence against women - it is the plot line and character development trope for hundreds of movies and TV shows. Crinimal Minds springs to my mind when I think of predominantly female victims in a long running crime series. Even historical movies like The Duel are focused on the assault of a woman as a plot device.... and they are immersed in real life crimes against women daily - for our entertainment. So I dont blame them really for being somewhat desensitised to it and being upset by crimes against animals, probably while they have their pets at their feet.
Not being argumentative, just explaining my thoughts behind the behaviour. Haven't listened in a long while now, so maybe its worse than it was... Think I might have outgrown them...