Jeffrey Dahmer Now In Netflix’s Two Most Popular Shows With ‘Tapes’ Release

I am not sure that anyone, even Netflix, would have predicted just how much presence Jeffrey Dahmer would have dominating the streaming service for a significant portion of the year. Dahmer, the drama, has been on top of Netflix’s charts for weeks with half a billion hours of viewership.

Now, and I can’t say I’ve ever seen this before, Jeffrey Dahmer is actually the focus of Netflix’s top two series, as a second Dahmer show has now arrived in the #2 spot.

This is not a drama, but rather a docuseries, Confessions of Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer tapes. It’s the third in the Confessions series, with past episodes focused on John Wayne Gacy and Ted Bundy, and it was just released in the wake of Dahmer with some level of synergy planned, no doubt.

The show is three episodes, three hours in total, which once again goes through Dahmer’s crimes, only this time, with lots of footage and interviews with the killer himself, once he was caught. The Dahmer drama re-enacted many of those interviews, and fans have already been comparing the two, Evan Peters’ Emmy nomination-bound performance, and the real Dahmer.

Of course, what’s happening is the opposite of what critics of the Dahmer series were hoping to see. Many have tried to shame Netflix for releasing the series at all, including the surviving families of Dahmer’s victims. But the only lesson Netflix seems to be taking away Dahmer is that a ton of people want to watch it, and this follow-up series ascending the list only reinforces that. Serial killer fascination, especially with Dahmer in the wake of this show, is extremely high. Probably less a reflection on Netflix than on the public as a whole, and Hollywood taking real-life killers and doing True Crime documentaries or dramatic reenactments is nothing new. The difference here is reach, as Dahmer is one of the most popular shows of the year on the most popular streaming service in the world.

So yes, we maybe heading toward a situation where the next show to top Netflix’s top 10 list and unseat Dahmer after weeks may be…another Jeffrey Dahmer show. Weird times, and indicative that even with all the supposed outrage, the public’s behavior is not reflecting that, and people just…really want to watch these series. And Netflix isn’t doing anything to discourage that, and in fact timing these releases to maximize Dahmer interest to create a situation where he’s in the top two of three spots on the service. You will probably not like the lessons Netflix learns from this, and expect a lot more True Crime dramas and documentaries from here.

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