Backseat Positivity
"Able to make serious topics lighthearted and fun - I even laughed at some points!"
Get your bi-weekly dose of positivity in this fun podcast with Dr Dawn Barlow, who helps you navigate all of the weird/best/worst parts of life!
Dawn takes you on the self-improvement journey you didn't realise you needed... Bought to you by a doctor who hasn't had life as sweet as many of her comrades. She knows firsthand just how rubbish life can be, yet has managed to turn her life around for the better!
From relationships to mental health to happiness, make sure you buckle up twice a week (Mondays and Thursdays) the join her and her guests for candid self-improvement. Don't forget of the course, the "weird thoughts" segment, where Dawn and her guests share weird thoughts from their lives.
Dawn says:
Sometimes life reminds me of being in a washing machine. It's a bit spinny and turbulent for a while, but then it stops and gives you a little break before spinning you into oblivion once more. It feels like the washing machine wants to wash something bad out of all of us... positivity.
Some might EVEN say that positivity is shouting from the backseat and no-one wants to listen to it... [backseat positivity] More than once a week, but less than 4 times a week, you can shove me in your auditory canals and listen to me chat about L.I.F.E., self-improvement, mental health and anything else that my little monkey-mind paws can grasp onto.
Sometimes other humans actually dare to join me.
It's candid, it's fun. Woo!
Backseat Positivity
The Psychology Behind True Crime Obsession
Ever wonder why true crime stories hold such a mesmerizing grip on our imaginations? Our latest episode promises to unlock the fascinating reasons behind our captivation with infamous criminals like Jeffrey Dahmer and Peter Sutcliffe. We tackle the intriguing paradox of true crime's popularity, especially among women, who stand at a higher statistical risk of victimhood. By dissecting our attraction to these extreme narratives, we uncover how they tap into our innate desire for conflict, resolution, and perhaps even a subconscious drive to become better problem solvers through stories of terror and survival.
As we journey deeper, we explore the delicate balance between the potential benefits and pitfalls of consuming true crime media. Discover how the genre might act as a form of self-education or therapy, helping viewers confront their vulnerabilities and build empathy for victims. Yet, there's a darker side to this obsession, with risks of heightened anxiety and distorted worldviews. We discuss the evolution of crime in modern times and the ethical considerations that creators and consumers alike must navigate to avoid glamorization or victim-blaming. It's a reminder of the importance of moderation and the need for a mindful approach when engaging with such intense themes.
Looking ahead, we offer a glimpse of future episodes, where we'll tackle intriguing subjects like high-protein diets, the personal and universal experience of stretch marks, and the pervasive nature of gossip. We even contemplate inviting a guest like Sophie to enrich our conversation with her enthusiasm. Ending on a festive note, we extend warm holiday wishes, leaving you with much to ponder until our next deep dive into the world of true crime and beyond.
Please consider helping me out, I'd seriously super appreciate it! <3
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How are they? Oh, the Australian accents come back. Have you ever wondered why we love watching people get? I probably can't say the word, you know, because it's like bad, illegal naughty. But have you ever wondered why we like true crime? That's what I'm going to call it today, but really I mean because I've often found myself going through like binge phases of watching true crime and being like why am I watching this? Why does it intrigue me so much? Why do I love it? Why am I addicted? Why am I binge watching horrendous crimes? And this isn't just me, my friends, no, no, no, it is a lot of people, a lot of people tuned into Dharma, uh, the I've forgotten what the Netflix show was called, but Monster or something.
Speaker 1:Anyway, very good, probably one of my favorites, and I have my own favorite serial killers. Would you believe it? Number one, I would say Dharma's gotta be up there. Very weird, inventive, and I don't mean this in like a. I think they're great. I just think, um, I find the story most fascinating. That's what I mean by number one favorite. I don't mean like I advocate for what they do, okay, so Dharma's like gotta be up there. If you don't know Dharma, I probably can't go into the detail, but oh, maybe I can. Uh, he do. You know what? I won't spoil it for you. Go watch the Netflix show or just read up about him.
Speaker 1:Very, very interesting, odd and sad, let's put it that way. Number two I've got to say that Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, is up there, just in the way that he was so sort of undercover and nobody assumed it was him. He was interviewed by the police a whole nine times and nobody thought it was him, and I think that's pretty bloody incredible in terms of like. Not him being incredible, not him being a great person, just incredible in terms of like he was that inconspicuous or conspicuous, I forget which way around it is. He was that unobvious that no one was like it's gotta be this guy. Come on nine times nine. So it's increasingly popular with women as well, which I find very interesting, given that women are the most likely and that is a fact, the most likely to be victims of these crimes.
Speaker 1:And so it's like why are we watching this? Are we not just giving ourselves mental health problems? So that's what I'm diving into today. Boom, boom, boom. Uh, there are, I'm gonna cover. Is it actually bad? Um, what are the positives? If it, if it ain't that bad after all, why do we watch it? Do you know what? This isn't in order. Number one why do we watch it? Number two is it even that bad? We We'll find out. And if not, are there sort of positive reasons for watching it? And how can we do it more healthily if it is, you know, bad? So, obviously with anything there are positives and negatives, but let's talk about why we watch it.
Speaker 1:Number one, I would say for me, me, I find myself watching these shows because I'm I'm just, I'm curious. You know what they say curiosity killed the dawn. Because it's not good for me. I often find myself watching them. I get really hot doing these podcasts. I'm taking my feet off and having the earth suck all my cold, I mean all my heat energy, out of my body because it works. I'm wearing slippers, but they are off. They have come off. The slippers are off.
Speaker 1:So, um, yeah, for me it's curiosity, like what drives these people to do this, and I think we as humans are so into extremes like all you have to do is look on YouTube and it's like I did this very extreme thing and this is how it went and we're looking for more and more and more extreme stuff. And what is more extreme than a serial killer? Like most of us, 99.99999% of us are not going to be a serial killer. So it then makes us question what is it like to be completely the opposite from what I am? Like I said, on YouTube we only really watch stuff that is like highly fantastical, over the top, extreme, kind of like over the top extreme, kind of like you know, I went and all you have to do is look at Mr Beast videos right, it's like I went and stayed in this one million pound a night villa and then I stayed in this one pound a night villa and it's that complete extreme. That really drives our curiosity. Like what is that actually like? So if you think killing someone or being a serial killer is like so opposite to you, like I would never think about doing that, or like it's really horrendous, obviously you're going to be intrigued by it, aren't you?
Speaker 1:So there are also a few other reasons. Okay, we as humans really love a couple of things. Number one extremes. Number two is stories. We love a conflict and we love closure, resolution. That is just I don't know why. I need to look into it really, because I am fascinated by human psychology. I really am Like why do we love? I think it's just settling for us, like mentally.
Speaker 1:We're like, okay, uh, we know, um, what our brain loves is to come up with, uh, a solution to everything. It's like oh, I must be tired because I'm iron deficient. Oh, I'm. It's not like I'm just tired, it's like no, why am I? I need to know the reason why, so that I know how to problem solve it next time. Or how to problem solve it now. And without that kind of resolution, our brains are like oh, what do I do now? Like I need to learn from this. And it is a selfective measure because it's like human brains want to be the best that we can be. It doesn't even matter who you are, like most people do, because we learn from our experiences. And if you don't learn from your experiences, you could die right or you could be in serious danger.
Speaker 1:You touch the um, you touch the hot hob as a kid. Oh, that hurt, it burnt me. I won't do that again. I've learned from the experience. That is a conflict. I want to touch the hob. I touched the hob. A resolution, I burnt myself. I'm not going to do it again. So it's like this Um, you know, I think I've just answered my own question, guys, so hats off to me. Uh, we don't need to go and do the research now. So, basically, we love a conflict and resolution and most of the time and I will get on to unsolved crimes because I think they are a fascinating thing in to one themselves I don't know that phrase in in unto themselves. Whatever, I think they're fascinating because we don't find out the reason. And again, I'll get onto it in a minute.
Speaker 1:But with a lot of crime documentaries, true crime documentaries, we find out who did it and we know we actually know before who did it. Like the dharma series. Like we know dharma did it because it's about him, but and then the resolution is that he ends up in prison and so on and so on and so on. So we know justice has been served. There is a resolution to this. It's very cathartic and what I mean by cathartic is it's settling for us. It gives us like a nice release of emotions, like settling emotions, like, oh okay, he's in prison now, he's not going to hurt anyone, and talking about hurting people. Uh, the other thing about crime documentaries is that they make. I personally actually think this right.
Speaker 1:I watch these horrible documentaries on my own. I don't know why I choose to do it on my own. It's probably self-sabotage, like everything else in my life but I watch them on my own and then, like at night time, I've actually banned myself from doing this, because it's it. My adrenaline is like up here, I basically think someone's gonna come and like storm down the door and come in and horrendously murder me. So, yeah, let's move on from that.
Speaker 1:Um, so, basically, it makes us feel like we are learning from this and how to therefore protect ourselves. We go, okay, well, the person who they killed was a prostitute who was out on the streets at 1am, got into a random person's car and therefore never returned. Now we can then reassure ourselves and be like, well, I'm not prostitute, I'm not going to go out at 1am on the streets, get into a random person's car and never return again. And we like to think that we therefore that's like protecting ourselves because we're not going to enter into that circumstance which is very again settling for us, for us and we it's like a primal instinct. You know we are, we're not going to get hurt because we've learned from that person's unfortunate circumstance and therefore we can protect ourselves and our family.
Speaker 1:And that's kind of what being a human's about, isn't it? It's about living and passing on our genes and protecting our genes. As much as you might not like to think it is, that is literally the whole purpose of our lives. I think, yes, we're gonna have fun, blah, blah, blah. But the whole like background of being human being, an animal being, any organism, is to pass on our genetic material and live forever in the form of offspring. Wow, I also think I quite like a little adrenaline rush, and there aren't many safe ways to get an adrenaline rush, apart from watching true crime.
Speaker 1:You do get a bit of an adrenaline rush. You're like, oh, like there's a lot going on here and it's scary, but I'm also sitting on the sofa eating popcorn, like I'm not doing anything dangerous myself. Therefore I'm not going to get hurt. Therefore, actually, I'm probably actually going to be better off in inverted commas because of this, because now I know how to protect myself. So actually it's kind of this um, weird backwards adrenaline rush, where we are kind of experiencing an adrenaline rush, but a safe one, and that can be again really settling for us. So another reason why we watch them. I also think there's an educational benefit.
Speaker 1:A lot of people like human psychology. I'm very into it. I'm like, why do people do that? I'm that person that reads all those airport books where it's like, how do we, uh, read someone's mind? Or how do we like body language or? Um, I've not actually read either of those, but I have no. I have, I've watched some body language stuff, um, and I would say I'm quite good at body language, mainly because of my job, like I work as a doctor, so I do read a lot of stuff also, uh, I meet a lot of people and I read a lot of their body language, I meant. But also having anxiety, I do think, gives your brain like a heightened sense of watching people's reactions to things, and therefore you might be you might be like a little bit overreactive to it, but you're also like much more like honed in on watching people's emotions. So I've basically got a double whammy. Oh, this fucking iPad needs to stop screen blacking, what do you call it, I don't know Timing out, I'm talking so quickly that I'm like literally not breathing. It's really bad for me.
Speaker 1:Now there are also kind of negative reasons why we watch it, and I think if you do kind of this, one's actually really interesting. Now, most people that watch true crime are female and it's like, well, they're the most common victims of this true crime, so why are they watching it? I look like I've got a plan exploding out of my head. The main reason is to play out our own vulnerability and pain. Why? Why do we do this to ourselves? Maybe because we think that we'll be able to protect ourselves? Maybe because it's happened to us in the past and we like to have some kind of, um connection with the characters or the victims I should say, not characters, they're not characters uh, with the victims, and we can kind of empathize with them a little bit. Maybe not fully, if you know they are, they were killed but we can empathize with them. Um, now, it may be kind of therapeutic to go through this, but there are obviously dangers, and that is what we're going to get on to now.
Speaker 1:Dangers, because I actually read something online the other day that was like, if you watch true crime to relax, now I don't watch it to relax. You'll be pleased to hear. I watch it because of all the other reasons I've just mentioned mainly curiosity, mainly you know it is quite extreme mainly probably because I feel like I'm enhancing my education oh dear, I'm gonna have to edit that one out, oh. But if you watch it to relax, there's apparently a theory that really you are kind of playing out your own trauma and it's actually like a a negative way of dealing with your trauma. Now, if that is the case, if you're like, oh, let's relax and watch some murder documentaries okay, we're just going with the full-on m word right now then it's probably advisable that you go and seek some kind of help. I think that would be fair to say. Go go get some trauma counselling out, some stuff. That's my advice. Now. Moving on to so is it bad? Well, again, guys, everything in moderation.
Speaker 1:But there are some negative consequences and I have mentioned a few of them already. Number one probably the biggest thing for me is that I do get quite a lot of anxiety and like a fear response and adrenaline rush from watching it, which is why I don't let myself watch crime stuff at night. It's probably the most common time for crime to happen at night, because you are hidden under the cover of darkness and there's less people out less people to watch the crime. So you might not get away with it if you are the criminal, but, realistically, the most common people that's going to happen to or happen from is it with me, is, you know, close family members or your partner. So serial killers are a little bit different, though, because they tend to go for random people like, uh, people that they don't know, or people that are not going to get traced back to them, people that they just find on the street generally, or, uh, I don't know why I said or because there was no more to that sentence, so we can think sometimes that, oh, a serial killer is going to storm through the door and come and get us now.
Speaker 1:This is called mean world syndrome. It has a name, mean world syndrome. Who knew it? This is the feeling that the world is much more dangerous than it actually is. Now I'm sitting on my sofa. No one has ever tried to break in. Well, actually, one person did, but it was a very feeble attempt. He pushed the door and that was it. I think it was just checking if it was unlocked and no one's like actually tried to break in. No one's ever tried to like really try and hurt me, you know, like attack me, hospitalize me, kill me.
Speaker 1:So really do I think that, sitting on my sofa, my snack of choice generally not popcorn, generally chocolate, let's be honest do I really think that someone's going to come through my door? Like, what is the probability of that? It's very, very low. So so the feeling that true crime gives us is that it could definitely happen to us. Well, it's happening on TV and it's happened to these people, and some of them are ordinary. You know, just like me, I'm an ordinary person. It could happen to them, it could happen to me. They're not like a prostitute or they're not like working in like a drug cartel or whatever. So I'd like to point out the prostitutes are more likely, as well as homeless people and people that probably work in drug cartels, although that's not generally depicted on serial killer shows. But those other demographics are more likely to get um to be victims of serial killers because, untraceable or less traceable, they're generally in more kind of dangerous situations, like being alone on the street at night. Uh, they're more vulnerable. They may not have family directly in contact with them. Um, those, yeah. So that's why I mentioned prostitutes a couple of times.
Speaker 1:I don't want it to sound like I'm being like um derogatory. That is literally the that, in particular Peter Sutcliffe, that was his kind of um demographic of victims. So mean world syndrome is basically saying the world feels more dangerous than it actually is. Because if you look at the, the statistics, like, most of us aren't going to be victim to a serial killer. In fact, I would say that serial killers are much more difficult to like. It's much more difficult to be a serial killer nowadays because everyone's got phones and like trackers on their phones. So good luck.
Speaker 1:Basically, I think the more likely place you're going to get be a victim of crime from is someone you know, a partner, a relative or someone close to you. That is generally the um, the demographic of person of crime nowadays, I would say. Now there are other serial killers in health care. Lucy letby in particular is the most, is one of the most recent ones, and there was an american nurse as well, a male american nurse who also um did that, uh, harold shipman. So those fortunately. So those fortunately are relatively rare, I think one every 10 years-ish.
Speaker 1:But I would say serial. I don't know the statistics, but serial killing has got to be on the downfall. So I would also say that it definitely desensitises me to victims to. Also, I would say that the shows definitely focus more on the serial killer themselves and have often glamorised them. Now, a lot of people have kind of fallen in love or pseudo-love with the serial killers after watching the shows because they are kind of, you know, the cinematics are good and they are kind of they're played by attractive people often. Ted Bundy in, in particular, had lots of uh admirers as well as, I think, dharma on his show, like on his show, his show uh spoiler, by the way, dharma's actually dead, so that's the end of that. Uh, he was killed by one of the inmates, justice woo. So well, maybe not justice woo. So yeah, sorry about that. I did warn you spoiler, but basically and there are loads of other serial killers who have been very much glamorised and have got like a fan base after these shows have come out in particular.
Speaker 1:So I do think you know, as well as working in healthcare, I'm very desensitized to like trauma, illness, any, you know a lot of things, a lot of medical problems, because that is literally my life. I'm surrounded by disaster, basically, basically. So if I was sensitive to everything that, like, I heard about, spoke about, read um, like witnessed or whatever, I would probably fall apart as a human. So you might think I'm a little bit like unsympathetic or unempathetic, but I think we kind of need it, sorry. So then you add on true crime and I do think it like adds another layer. It's like you, depending on how the focus is on me on the show, it's like is it focused on the victim? Generally not, and therefore you can end up getting this like a huge desensitization towards the.
Speaker 1:The people were actually killed during this and you can kind of dissociate from like their family and their lives before and you're focused more on the story of like how it happened and whether the person got caught and I definitely think that's happened to me and whether that's the show's fault, whether that's my fault, whether it's no one's fault, I don't know, but that's just that is a negative consequence. And then people tell you about their like other things that happen in their lives, like people that you know, and you're just like cool, well, I watched somebody, not watch somebody. I watched a documentary about murder. Like in your head you're maybe thinking this. You're thinking like oh, it's not that bad. Like, oh, your partner slaps you around the face like at least you didn't get murdered, kind of thing. Not that I've like necessarily thought that or said that, but like I'm just coming up with an example. So that is, I would say, a negative consequence. So there is, there are also mental health consequences of just being like that stimulated for that long in terms of like the anxiety and the fear and the adrenaline release like it's not good for your body, despite maybe not noticing it at that point, and it's not good for your mind. So you do need downtime to relax.
Speaker 1:Now let's talk about the ways to healthily enjoy true crime. If there is such a thing, I'm just turning my iPad back on because it's being a little bitch, so we can watch true crime healthily. And this is how Number one, moderation. Guys, it's not difficult, do anything in moderation and your life will be great. If you start watching it, binge, watching it a bit obsessed, like watching it, like you know, series after series after series, I go through a little like episode, like a little flurry of watching it, and then I take a break for like a few months and then I come back to it, and I think that's necessary and I think that's a good way of like doing it healthily and coping with the like, the kind of curiosity to watch it, but then also the like I need to look after my brain and my physical and mental health and not drive myself insane. Um, so, watching it in moderation, having like mixing it with uplifting stuff, and not just watching one after the other after the other because Netflix likes doing that.
Speaker 1:It's like oh, you watch true crime, do you want to watch it again? You probably do, because that's what the algorithm says. Here's another one that you can watch of a woman getting brutally murdered by her husband. Have fun. And it's like thanks. So so try and watch something. I'm trying to think, oh, it's just coming to me. I was like, maybe watch some Queer Eye in the middle, maybe watch like something like like a Christmas movie or a rom-com or something like that, like something kind of light-hearted and cheery, and that's not gonna like make you severely depressed. I think it can be good that we see the behaviors of true crime acknowledged and punished. I think that's like a healthy way to do it. Now again, I will talk about unsolved crimes, because I do think they are slightly more damaging for us. Like to watch unsolved mysteries. Maybe I should just do another episode. I'm gonna see how long this one is. I think it's over half an hour already, so can I make another episode on it? I think I should. Hmm, to be decided, tbd.
Speaker 1:I think it's important to be aware of sensationalism in, in particular, I think the Dharma series was very like nicely filmed and it was very like aesthetically pleasing in a weird way, like if you watch it it was like quite dopamine releasing to watch. Like the cinematics was really good, like the was really good and, yeah, he was kind of good looking. So it was like this weird, like I'm enjoying it. But also the the content is strangely horrendous. So it's like this very discordant mismatch of emotions. So it's just being aware of the fact that this is a show and really they are probably glamorizing it, making it visibly attractive, visually attractive, I mean, and therefore you probably shouldn't take too much like try and step back and have a look and go what actually happened here? Oh, oh, someone died. Like imagine if that was my family member, or imagine if that was someone I know, and then you can really like empathize with the situation rather than being like, oh, look at the pretty colors.
Speaker 1:There is something called a solace test, which is basically about whether a true crime series is actually beneficial or not and whether it should be made. It came from like a psychology psychologist person and it has a few questions. Number one is the violence actually needed to tell the story? As a general rule, like, probably yes for true crime stuff, but if you watch like other other stories, like if this, if the crime is like a side story, is it really needed? Number two is it actually the truth? Like did it? Is that what happened? Because if you start making stuff up and um, you know, obviously if it is fully, if it is like a fictional thing, then fine, but fictional yeah. But if you start like altering major parts of the story to kind of make it more glamorized, then that's slightly ethically questionable.
Speaker 1:And there are ethical questions surrounding true crime documentaries, like lots of people say they shouldn't be made because they forget the victims, and that's another thing. Is it victim blaming? Is it like, well, they were a prostitute and they were out on the streets and they were wearing like a mini skirt, so it's their fault? Well, that is not a helpful way to look at it. Is that people shouldn't be murdering prostitutes or women, despite whether they're a prostitute or not, like that should be the kind of takeaway from it. So those are the questions to ask yourself.
Speaker 1:Or if you're making a true crime documentary, I think probably the healthiest way to do it is number one, moderation. Number two mixing it with uplifting stuff. That's also moderation kind of. But number three is always remembering the victim at the heart of the story really and not being like completely focused on the perpetrator. Having, like a victim, focused mindset when you watch these things is, I would say, the healthiest way to balance the negative consequences and also try and maintain some kind of empathy whilst watching these sort of horrendous crimes take place, although you're not always necessarily watching them. I think we can definitely dissociate from from the like true horror of it, because in our, our head it's like, well, it's kind of fictional or it's focused. It's not. The focus isn't on the victim, but we need to remember that people did die. I think I'm going to wrap it up there. You know that was 40 minutes.
Speaker 1:I think in the next one you might think this is backseat positivity, like Dawn White talking about true crime and stuff. Guys, it's part of life, crime is part of life and I also cover things where I'm like, oh, is this good for me? Why am I doing it? I'm basically covering the science behind and I do research, all of this stuff. Guys, I look at studies and stuff like that, so it's not just me making shit up. It. There is some anecdotal points, understand, but I'm trying to make the scientific way of maintaining your mental and physical health, bringing it to the people okay, in a somewhat, you know, chilled and fun way, and I just talk too much, so podcast is the best way for me. So, anyway, if you did like it, like subscribe, share, whatever.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm sorry I'm on Wagovi and it just makes me burp a lot, but I think next time I will cover unsolved crimes, because I just I think it would have been too long. I've got to go catch a coach, so soz, and also, damn, there was something else. Oh, I might do the ethics of true crime documentaries, but I think I'll just cover that in the in the unsolved mystery one, because I did watch a bit of unsolved mysteries and I was like, what am I doing? I don't think this is good for me. So we'll be covering that anyway, guys, I hope you liked it. Bye.
Speaker 1:Oh, I do have some other ones coming up, um about. I know you guys really like the kind of medically stuff, so that we are gonna intertwine those. I do have high protein diet coming up. Wait, there, I actually have a list high protein diet I have. The issue is, guys, I have to research all of these things first. So, um, and I was going to do one on stretch marks because basically I am one big stretch mark, so stay tuned for stretch mark talks about stretch marks. Uh, gossip, omg, I need to talk about gossip. It's like a necessity. In fact, I might get Sophie on for that one because she is equally as gossipy as me. And also reducing. I feel like I'm failing at everything in life if I don't like go to the olympics for it. So, basically, reducing competitiveness. I need help. So I'm going to talk about that. Anyway, that's the end. Bye. Have a good Christmas if this, um, this is actually airing today, but have a good Christmas in the next, like 10 days. Bye.
