Why do people have an over obsession with crime, sex, and drugs?

Kylta

In the eyes media crime, drugs and sex sells.
I personally don't care about who fu¢ks who fu¢ks I mean its none of my business unless somebody is taking advantage of somebody in my family or extended family, but if the media say X is having an affair with Y then everybody is waffling on about them

Drugs in Dublin or any county in Ireland can be acquired with a phone call or two. So why are people so engrossed about drug lords and their money, cars, etc

Crime well its in the news media and other media outlets daily. And a lot of the victims of crime don't seem to bother reporting it. But yet people have a vivid interest

But why has a society are we enthralled with sex, crime, drugs?

hatrickpatrick

Crime fascinates me because of the non-crime aspects of criminals' lives and how they interact personally and socially I guess. As in, the fact that criminals often live ordinary lives when they're not involved in their criminal trade, have families, friends, social lives, etc.

The fact that one of the deadliest feuds in Irish criminal history involved people being targeted at a boxing event is incredible, as is the underlying story behind it - the idea that you could be sitting across the table from someone in a business context, their phone rings and they say "excuse me, have to take this" and step outside. Except that unlike most of us who might excuse ourselves to take a call about a relative, for example, or another business issue, that person is stepping outside to say "go ahead and shoot that guy" to the person on the other end of the phone, before stepping back inside and resuming their ordinary day to day life.

I think that's actually why Breaking Bad resonated so much, as it showed a very ordinary person slowly becoming a criminal mastermind while trying simultaneously to maintain his ordinary family and social life when he wasn't "on the clock" as a drugs kingpin. Similarly, Love/Hate also differed from your average generic crime story in that it focused predominantly on the characters' life stories outside crime, with the crime elements almost an inconvenience to the characters' real lives (Darren trying to maintain an ordinary romantic relationship while transitioning from reluctant drug pusher to serial killer for example, or Nidge and Trish having an ordinary wedding reception while having to contend with the fact that their guests were split into two factions which wanted to murder eachother).

I think that's what makes crime stories so fascinating. Many criminals are just out and out scumbags, but those with the intelligence to get to the top of the criminal underworld tend to also be the kind of people who hold down regular lives outside "work", where they have families, friends, are active in their local communities, play sports etc. That's what's so fascinating about it from my point of view anyway.

The fact that people like the Hutches and Byrnes are often described as being adored in their immediate neighbourhoods speaks to the fact that one needs charisma to become a successful gangster. And that's fairly mind blowing, that the guy who orders a hit with gunmen and machine guns is also a guy who's known locally for being a friendly, outgoing character who's involved with a local sports club or whatever.

What I think is interesting are the subordinate sets of interests within, say, Crime, to use one of your examples.

I like detective novels and real crimes where the killer has escaped, or is only found after some ingenious police work. A good example would be the Night Stalker. He crept into people's houses like a cat, and raped and killed dozens of women, sometimes with their husbands at home. He was a complete freak and I wouldn't want to trivialise his crimes, but it is a compelling story.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_James_DeAngelo

Whereas I'd have no time whatever for the reporting that goes on in the like of the Sunday World where every two-bit drug dealer is given some cartoonish moniker like "The Monk", The Penguin" or whatever. Theyve gone way over the top with that. They must be up to "The Podiatrist" or "The Optician" by now.

Similarly, I've never seen the Godfather or Sopranos. Sounds boring.

I think some people are motivated more by a killers frame of mind and some people prefer mob stuff. I can't even imagine the appeal of the latter but no doubt there is one, it's massively popular.

Kylta

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Crime fascinates me because of the non-crime aspects of criminals' lives and how they interact personally and socially I guess. As in, the fact that criminals often live ordinary lives when they're not involved in their criminal trade, have families, friends, social lives, etc.

The fact that one of the deadliest feuds in Irish criminal history involved people being targeted at a boxing event is incredible, as is the underlying story behind it - the idea that you could be sitting across the table from someone in a business context, their phone rings and they say "excuse me, have to take this" and step outside. Except that unlike most of us who might excuse ourselves to take a call about a relative, for example, or another business issue, that person is stepping outside to say "go ahead and shoot that guy" to the person on the other end of the phone, before stepping back inside and resuming their ordinary day to day life.

I think that's actually why Breaking Bad resonated so much, as it showed a very ordinary person slowly becoming a criminal mastermind while trying simultaneously to maintain his ordinary family and social life when he wasn't "on the clock" as a drugs kingpin. Similarly, Love/Hate also differed from your average generic crime story in that it focused predominantly on the characters' life stories outside crime, with the crime elements almost an inconvenience to the characters' real lives (Darren trying to maintain an ordinary romantic relationship while transitioning from reluctant drug pusher to serial killer for example, or Nidge and Trish having an ordinary wedding reception while having to contend with the fact that their guests were split into two factions which wanted to murder eachother).

I think that's what makes crime stories so fascinating. Many criminals are just out and out scumbags, but those with the intelligence to get to the top of the criminal underworld tend to also be the kind of people who hold down regular lives outside "work", where they have families, friends, are active in their local communities, play sports etc. That's what's so fascinating about it from my point of view anyway.

The fact that people like the Hutches and Byrnes are often described as being adored in their immediate neighbourhoods speaks to the fact that one needs charisma to become a successful gangster. And that's fairly mind blowing, that the guy who orders a hit with gunmen and machine guns is also a guy who's known locally for being a friendly, outgoing character who's involved with a local sports club or whatever.

Well intelligent criminals are people who are part of a community have families they engage in the communities and they function like most people only their businesses are mostly illegal. But these are the few and far between, the ones getting shot and doing the shooting are the people who are far removed from their bosses, these are the people that the majority of citizens class as scumbags.
I wonder do ordinary people look at the riches these people attain through criminality and consider maybe going down that path.