Killer Crushes: The Joe Goldberg Effect
The Psychology of Romanticizing Serial Murderers
Before You, before Tumblr moodboards of Jeffrey Dahmer, there were marriage proposals to Ted Bundy during his murder trial. There were teenage girls sketching hearts around Charles Manson’s name. The cultural crush on killers isn’t new—it’s just been rebranded for streaming.
Serial killers have long captivated the public imagination, and in some cases, the public's desire. But the recent rise of characters like Joe Goldberg in Netflix’s You has reignited this old flame in a modern, bingeable format. This post explores the psychology behind that obsession, tracing its roots from real-life courtroom infatuations to fictional love affairs with dangerous men, and asks—what does this fascination really say about us?
From Bundy to Joe—A Timeline of Killer Obsession
To understand where we are, we have to look at where we've been.
Ted Bundy is often credited as the origin point for the mainstream glamorization of serial killers, but he wasn’t the first. He was, however, the first to receive the kind of celebrity treatment that blurred the line between media coverage and fanfare. Bundy confessed to killing at least 30 women across several states in the 1970s, often luring victims with charm and fake injuries before brutally assaulting and murdering them. Despite this, he was described as "handsome" and "intelligent" by the press—traits that clashed so dramatically with his crimes that many people struggled to reconcile the two. Women attended his trial in droves, some out of curiosity, others out of devotion. Some believed in his innocence; others didn’t care. He received love letters, gifts, and even a marriage proposal in court.
That blueprint—killer as charismatic antihero—was echoed in later figures like Richard Ramirez, the self-proclaimed “Night Stalker,” who terrorized Southern California in the 1980s with a spree of home invasions, rapes, and satanic ritual killings. Despite his grotesque crimes and courtroom outbursts, he developed a cult following and even married one of his admirers while on death row.
Charles Manson, too, cultivated a dangerous magnetism, leading the infamous Manson Family in a series of brutal murders—including the killing of pregnant actress Sharon Tate. Manson's followers, many of them young women, remained loyal to him even after his incarceration, defending his ideology and identity as a spiritual figure.
Then came Jeffrey Dahmer. His crimes, perhaps the most viscerally disturbing, involved not only murder, but necrophilia and cannibalism. Dahmer admitted to killing and dismembering 17 men and boys, many of whom were young men of color. And yet, after the 2022 Netflix dramatization of his life—Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story—a younger generation of viewers found themselves posting thirst-traps, fan edits, and "misunderstood loner" takes on TikTok. The aesthetics of these men—carefully framed in media coverage and reenactments—turn them into something other than what they are. They become tragic, complex, misunderstood. And more disturbingly, desirable.
And this isn’t just a relic of the past. In October 2023, Wade Wilson—dubbed the “Deadpool Killer” because of his shared name with the Marvel character—was arrested in Florida for the brutal murders of two women, both killed in the same night. One of the victims, Kristine Melton, had been in a sexual relationship with him; the second, Diane Ruiz, was murdered just hours later. Details of the killings, including signs of extreme violence and strangulation, shocked the local community. And yet, as media images of Wilson circulated—shirtless, tattooed, dark-haired, and smirking—social media responses included comments about his appearance, his "bad boy" vibe. Despite the horror of his crimes, some people online seemed drawn to the fantasy of the killer, not the reality. It's a disturbing pattern: when the perpetrator fits a certain aesthetic, fascination eclipses fear—and attraction can override accountability.
What Is Hybristophilia?
This phenomenon isn’t just a cultural fluke. Psychologists have a name for it: hybristophilia. It refers to sexual or romantic attraction to individuals who commit violent crimes, particularly those involving power and dominance. It’s often seen in the form of prison marriages or public fan clubs for high-profile murderers.
The motivations vary. Some people believe they’re special enough to reach the killer’s “real” self. Others are drawn to the power and danger these figures represent. For some, the thrill lies in the proximity to taboo, without direct risk. Regardless of motive, hybristophilia reflects deeper psychological themes—control, fantasy, transgression, and sometimes trauma.
The Psychology of the “Fix Him” Fantasy
A major part of the attraction is rooted in the “fix him” fantasy. It’s the Beauty and the Beast dynamic taken to a pathological extreme. In fiction, this plays out over and over again: the emotionally wounded, dangerous man whose love can only be unlocked by the right woman.
In You, Joe Goldberg is portrayed not just as a stalker and killer, but as someone deeply lonely, abandoned, and desperate to love. His internal monologue pulls viewers into his warped justifications, making him seem less like a monster and more like a tragic, broken soul. His crimes are contextualized with trauma, his victims recast as obstacles to his quest for connection. Fiction gives him depth. And that depth gives people room to empathize. Once empathy is established, attraction is only a short leap away.
That same logic gets applied—dangerously—to real people. In the case of Wade Wilson, online discussions frequently referenced his troubled childhood, substance use history, and past trauma as if these biographical notes somehow made his crimes more forgivable or understandable. TikTok comments, Reddit threads, and fan edits often speculated about what could have gone differently in his life or praised his “haunted eyes” and tattoos. Sympathy becomes aestheticized. In this framework, his real-life brutality is flattened into backstory, and his mugshot becomes a kind of movie poster. When people say “he’s hot” or “he just needed love,” it’s not really about justice or truth—it’s about romanticizing male suffering to the point where violence becomes part of the allure.
Control, Power, and Safety from a Distance
Part of what makes these infatuations so magnetic is the illusion of safety—not from the killer, but with him. While I don’t mean to be overly gendered, the truth is that most serial killers are male, and many of the people who obsess over them are female. And most women, in some form or another, are drawn to partners who will protect them. Someone strong. Someone dangerous to everyone else but tender with them. In that light, the serial killer becomes more than a romantic interest—he becomes a shield. The fantasy hinges on being the exception: the one woman he wouldn’t hurt, the one person he’d do anything for. In this warped dynamic, violence becomes proof of loyalty. Possessiveness reads as passion. Murder turns into devotion. It’s the Joker and Harley Quinn effect—what should be a cautionary tale gets mistaken for epic love. Real-life killers like Wade Wilson, or fictional ones like Joe Goldberg, are reimagined as fiercely loyal men driven by love. It scratches at a deep-rooted desire to be chosen and protected at all costs—even if that cost is morality itself. And once violence becomes romanticized, it’s only a short leap from admiration to obsession.
When Aesthetics Overpower Ethics
Of course, media plays an enormous role in sustaining and glamorizing these narratives. Joe Goldberg is played by Penn Badgley, a conventionally attractive actor with a soft voice and intelligent demeanor. Even when he’s dismembering bodies, he’s doing it in a cardigan.
Ted Bundy, portrayed by Zac Efron in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, was framed more as a romantic lead than a predator.
And then there’s Jeffrey Dahmer—arguably one of the most disturbing serial killers in modern history—brought to life by Evan Peters in Netflix’s Dahmer. Despite the show’s intention to highlight the victims and societal failures, Peters’ performance, paired with moody cinematography and a haunting score, reignited a wave of Dahmer fan edits and thirst posts online.
And then there’s the Menendez brothers. While the real brothers were convicted of murdering their parents in 1989 and were not stereotypical serial killers, they were played by Cooper Koch and Nicholas Chavez in Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, and similarly became subjects of online sympathy and aestheticized content that it became hard to tell whether the online community was lusting over the real-life brothers or the actors themselves (I’ll touch more on the specifics of their case in a future post).
When aesthetics take priority over ethics, killers become characters—fascinating, entertaining, and even lovable. Soundtracks, lighting, voiceover narration, and camera angles all shape our emotional response. It's hard to see someone as purely evil when the cinematography makes them look tortured, poetic, and downright gorgeous.
So What Does This Say About Us?
For one, it reveals how deeply culture links masculinity, dominance, and desirability. Many women are socialized to empathize with or rehabilitate difficult men, and society romanticizes suffering when it comes in the form of male violence. The killer becomes a cipher for unspoken fantasies—power, rebellion, intensity, or even control over fear itself. It’s easier to understand attraction to a killer when we see how culture rewards male destructiveness with mystique. But it’s also a mirror. Our fascination with serial killers, real or fictional, reflects our discomfort with vulnerability, our hunger for control, and our willingness to conflate danger with depth.
Our crushes on killers aren’t random—they’re reflective. They tell us something about how power, danger, gender, and media intersect. Joe Goldberg didn’t create the problem. He just put it in a hoodie and made it bingeable. Moreover, the cultural crush on killers has been around for decades, and it shows no signs of fading. As long as we continue to romanticize the wounded, brooding man as a symbol of passion and mystery, we’ll keep seeing killers cast as heartthrobs. And until we reckon with what that says about our relationship to violence, gender, and power, we’ll keep swiping right on danger.