How Some Say Fans Of Netflix's 'Dahmer' Have Gone Too Far Online

It’s now been about six weeks since Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story came out on Netflix, and it’s about time for a look into how contentious the fandom has become.

The fact that there’s an actual fandom for this show says it all since a true crime documentary about a serial killer who eats people is probably not the best thing for fans to devote themselves to.

This isn’t part of the classic “whether or not it’s unhealthy to enjoy true crime” debate, instead, the problem everyone’s seeing right now is the disturbing thirst for Dahmer that’s appeared online in the past few weeks. This is less the documentary’s fault and more the fault of people who somehow found him sympathetic after watching. Apparently, something about the documentary left a portion of fans finding Dahmer incredibly attractive.

But that’s far from the only thing the fandom has been up to lately. For example, they’re auctioning off Dahmer’s stuff as if he’s their favorite celebrity. Why you’d ever want to own Jeffrey Dahmer’s glasses is a question that’s perhaps better unpacked in therapy, but someone recently spent $150,000 on them.

Hopefully, no one’s going to turn his hometown into a tourist destination like the Lizzie Borden bed and breakfast, but it’s only a matter of time until it happens.

So, Dahmer was released at the end of September. This seems like something Netflix should have thought about a little more because that’s just in time for the Halloween hype that takes over all of October (or Spooktober, as the educated call it).

Maybe this was intentional, but the thing is, there’s a big downside to releasing something right before the big holiday. To put it simply, people can’t be trusted to avoid making objectionably distasteful Halloween costumes.

Recently, eBay had to put out a statement that they were getting rid of Dahmer Halloween costumes. Apparently, the demand for them was just so high, but a few sane people stumbled upon them and decided to report them.

At the same time, a number of people have still decided to dress as Jeffrey Dahmer this Halloween. In fact, the costume is so simple and easy to confuse with other people or characters (like Dwight Schrute, for example), that a number of celebrities have been called out for dressing as Dahmer for Halloween when they didn’t mean to at all, including Robert Irwin, which led to minor controversy.

Bars in Milwaukee apparently had so many people show up dressed as Dahmer in October that they had to ban the costume.

The documentary itself is already known for its controversy, such as a perceived lack of respect toward the families of the victims, many of whom are portrayed in the series.

But really, the focus shouldn’t just be on the documentary itself, but the people who loved it so much they dressed up as Dahmer for Halloween or simped for him on Twitter. The whole Dahmer era has been pretty concerning, and hopefully, it’ll be coming to an end post-spooky season. Hopefully.