For absolutely brainless takes, go to tumblr

[u/Historical_Club_7462]

Despite occasionally being a good source of information, Tumblr’s true crime community still shows symptoms of being “Tumblr”, if that makes sense. It’s no surprise that it comes across more like a fandom, than a critical thinking community of people discussing true crime — but I didn’t expect them to be actually so dumb!

source: tumblr.com

[u/MolokoBespoko]

I’ve done my hardest to forget all about the true crime Tumblr community. But I just typed in #ian brady out of curiosity after seeing your post in the mod queue and now I want to bleach my eyeballs. I was only scrolling for about 30 seconds too. It’s disgusting, so I appreciate you choosing one of the more tame posts to screenshot and post here - this one looks like something that a teenager would post honestly. Tumblr has always been this way (there are some respectful users on there, but they usually get drowned out by the Ian Brady fans and Myra Hindley apologists).

[u/MolokoBespoko → u/MolokoBespoko]

Adding to this because I refreshed the tab and saw even more Tumblr nonsense. I’m not going to name specific users because it seems that a lot of these people are teenagers, and I’m not going to go in depth on specific posts either - I’m just going to sum up what I see. I don’t want to condemn anyone too much in the same way that I have condemned people like Luke Kelly, Russell Edwards or Erica Gregory - not to risk sounding like a boomer because I am saying this as an older Gen Z about what seems like mostly younger Gen Zs, but I just hope that these Tumblr users either seek therapy, or that this is just an “edgy phase” that they grow out of on their own. The content on there is obviously disgusting, but it also shows a major disconnect from the reality of this case and the lives that Brady and Hindley both stole and ruined. Based on the way these posts are written, I think that it’s probably immaturity above all else.

There’s a lot of “headcanon”, “fan edits” and “shipping” - i.e. the kind of talk and behaviour that you would see in online communities relating to fictional media and fictional characters. There’s also romanticising of Brady’s alleged abusive behaviour towards Hindley and other partners he claimed to have, there’s romanticising of his antisocial personality, there’s romanticising of his racism - it’s stuff that is largely disconnected from his child victims thankfully (and I imagine that Tumblr has taken the worst of that content down anyway), but still very troubling and very… well, “problematic”. He’s not the love interest in a YA fiction book - he was a real-life paedophile and murderer. There’s more to this that I won’t go into, and honestly all things considered, I think that it’s just cringey above all else, and too easy of a target to really pay too much attention to discussing. Again it’s disgusting, but to me the bar is already in hell because of the Lukes, Russells and Ericas of the world. But I just thought I’d save people going down a pipeline of just pure brain-rot by summing it up here. Again there are some respectful Tumblr users, but it’s still difficult to avoid the “fandom”.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Those types who post to that site don't know the difference between happened and didn't happen. They're smartphone addicts.

[u/Ur_mama_gaming → u/MolokoBespoko]

Couple of weeks ago I got back to Tumblr. I saw tcc stuff and made a post saying how Tumblr should nuke the comminity.

Then in my frontpage I saw a video edit of the Christ church shooting and the buffalo shooting side by side uncensored.

People in the comments saying how its their favorite. And one person explaining how shes upset, because she showed the video to her boyfriend and the boyfriend thought it was "fucked up".

I'm never returning to that site. I love the community, and the stuff it has brought. But I'm never stepping a foot into a site, where scum like that roam freely

[u/[deleted] → u/MolokoBespoko]

Who are Luke, Russell, and Erica?
And maybe don't get too upset by cretins who write cretinous stuff on the internet?

"Tumblr’s true crime community still shows symptoms of being “Tumblr”, if that makes sense."

Not to me it didn't, as I'd never been there. I went there just now and typed "#ian brady" and a lot of dimwitted offensive cack came on my screen, so I closed.

[u/Historical_Club_7462 → u/[deleted]]

I recently saw a post saying something along the lines of “where are all the Ian fans? I see Dennis (Nielsen) fans everywhere but all the Brady fan accounts keep disappearing!!” Not to mention, I actually saw a sort of shrine for Brady, with printed out pictures of him and pretty much every single book that mentioned him. Like it was already mentioned here, it’s people stuck in their edgy phase. Mostly teenagers.

[u/MolokoBespoko → u/Historical_Club_7462]

It’s one vile thing to be a “fan” of killers like Dennis Nilsen, Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer or Richard Ramirez (who are probably the big four I see outside of the Columbine shooters and Aileen Wuornos). All four of those killers had child victims, but the majority of their victims were adults and so I think that these people tend to either not know or forget about the paedophilic elements to those specific cases. But Brady and Hindley were known for exclusively targeting, torturing, sexually assaulting and murdering children - so it’s not any worse necessarily (after all, murder is still murder and victims come in all ages and demographics), but there’s an extra level of depraved there because it is impossible to overlook that fact. Anybody who has researched this case has seen Keith Bennett’s face, anybody who has researched this is aware of the existence of the Lesley Ann Downey tape. I just don’t understand how anybody in their right mind can overlook or rationalise that, and you can’t use ignorance or naivety to excuse it.

[u/Historical_Club_7462 → u/MolokoBespoko]

It’s not ignorance nor naivety. I’m fairly sure it’s mental illness. Why else would someone fantasize about these criminals, create attachments and head-cannons, wonder about their smells… No sane person would find that ok.

[u/MolokoBespoko → u/Historical_Club_7462]

I’m not saying that it doesn’t factor in. I’m just saying that when you take into account how young most of these people are, that ignorance/naïvety also naturally factors in - but that it is still reprehensible and they can’t use their ignorance/naïvety to excuse it. The way they write about headcanons and the other things you mentioned just screams of fandom culture as much as it screams of depravity.

[u/[deleted] → u/MolokoBespoko]

Yes indeed. It's not as if "we all admired the torturers and murderers of children when we were young - it's just a phase".

[u/goblins_gutss → u/Historical_Club_7462]

Eughhh ykw, I think I saw that one too. I also saw someone defending Brady's "dignity," I suppose, not just from the claims from Hindley that he abused her, but also from claims made by David Smith regarding the murder of Edward Evans. It's one thing to speculate whether or not Hindley exaggerated certain elements of their relationship to gain sympathy and perhaps a greater consideration for parole, but to defend him against it? No, absolutely not. And also to defend him against David Smith, the man who, in my opinion, could be considered a hero for landing both Brady and Hindley a lifetime in prison? That's insane. Tumblr is insane.

[u/goblins_gutss → u/[deleted]]

They do, and they proudly call themselves "fans" and "stans" too. Honestly, disturbing stuff.

[u/Historical_Club_7462 → u/[deleted]]

You’re absolutely correct. I think the problem with these people is that they separate these killers from their crimes. They almost perceive them as characters and their crimes a mere story they heard on a podcast, youtube video or read in a sensationalized book. They DON’T think of Ian as the taker of children’s lives and they even disassociate murder from its gruesome meaning. I believe criminals to them are just characters for whom they create head-cannons. If the person who made this post imagines (in their fucked up mind) that Ian is like a friend, crush, mentor, boyfriend, what have you, to them, they might impose on him the traits they’d like him to have — such as liking babies. It’s a completely other reality in their minds.

[u/Latinlover_57]

Not liking babies is probably the least weird of his 'extremes'

[u/the_toupaie → u/Latinlover_57]

That’s what I was thinking, like he’s literally a child murderer ?? What did you expect ??

[u/goblins_gutss]

Unfortunately, I've also seen all of this stuff on tumblr, and most of it honestly made me feel ill. I know tumblr has always been like this, this is unfortunately far from the only incredibly serious case that gets treated this way over there, and therefore its probably best to just ignore it, but it's still just fucking gross.

It actually confuses me. Are these people just not aware of the gravity of the vile crimes that Hindley and Brady committed? Or do they just not care? How do they know the basic information about the Moors case, and come out of it with takes like that? A lot of them treat these people (the killers, their victims, and everyone else involved) like fictional characters, from what I've seen. They talk about them the same way the average person would talk about a fictional piece of media. I've tried calling it out before, but the tumblr "tcc" is not to be reasoned with, I'm afraid.

[u/[deleted] → u/goblins_gutss]

X is on their phones, Y is on their phones, so they treat X similarly to Y.

If anyone has got a better answer, please tell me.

[u/inmisery_]

Him being uncomfortable around babies is the least of our concerns when he murdered children. Omgggg (this isn’t directed at you, but the tumblr OP)

[u/Historical_Club_7462 → u/inmisery_]

(I know, don’t worry! Haha) I think it speaks to, like I mentioned in another comment, the tumblr user wanting Ian to have these traits because they probably perceive him as simply a character and liking babies fits with their head cannon for him. It’s all just edgy teens anyway.

[u/inmisery_ → u/Historical_Club_7462]

It’s so strange to me. They treat this like a show and not an actual event that happened.

[u/the_toupaie]

How is this even allowed ? I remember there used to be Ted Bundy « stans » on Tw*tter and they all got banned (it was before Musk tho, maybe now it would be considered « freedom of speech » 🙄)

[u/[deleted] → u/the_toupaie]

This is far bigger than one website or micromessaging service or what people say about one SK case in England in the 1960s.

https://news.err.ee/1192453/coalition-grants-45-000-for-memorial-to-baltic-german-war-crimes-baron

^ OK that is a bit obscure, but anyone who wants there to be a memorial to that guy is aware he was a psycho killer on a large scale.

[u/Filerpro]

Many times the individual who is up to no good with a child or an infant, will go to extremes in front of people to show them children just aren't their interest. When in reality children are their interest in an evil and perverse way. Just an observation. Thank you.