The Devil You Know: How Online Fame Blinds Us to Real Evil

There is a peculiar moment in modern culture when a fictional serial killer becomes a heartthrob. Penn Badgley, the actor behind Joe Goldberg in the Netflix phenomenon You, has spent years expressing genuine bewilderment at the phenomenon. Fans didn't simply appreciate his performance—they wanted to date his character. They swooned over Joe's literary references, his homemade pasta, his obsessive devotion to anniversaries. They conveniently filed away the stalking, the imprisonment, the murder.

This isn't merely fandom gone sideways. It's the dark endpoint of a psychological mechanism that now governs much of our digital lives: the parasocial relationship. And when that mechanism collides with real-world violence, the results are deeply unsettling.

The Architecture of False Intimacy

The term "parasocial" emerged in the 1950s to describe how radio hosts crafted their delivery to feel like intimate conversation. Hosts discovered that the more a broadcast resembled a chat between friends in a living room, the more listeners tuned in. By the 1980s, television personalities had refined this into an art form—talk show hosts built "honest personas" over years, creating the illusion that audiences truly knew them through shared experiences and manufactured candor.

The internet changed everything. The early web functioned as a strange hybrid of diary and pen-pal correspondence—users shared family photos, daily minutiae, and personal struggles with strangers in faceless chat windows. But the 2010s transformed this into something far more potent. Social media became a curated theater of "authenticity," where influencers blended performative intimacy with algorithmic precision. The result was near-constant exposure: you could "tune in" to someone's life at any moment, from anywhere.

The platforms themselves accelerated this. Content originally designed for actual friends now reaches predominantly strangers, yet retains the informal warmth of personal sharing. The most successful creators maintain that delicate balance—just enough polish to inspire aspiration, just enough vulnerability to feel attainable.

Why Our Brains Fall For It

The human mind is remarkably unconcerned with reciprocity when it comes to social connection. Our neural wiring prioritizes safety and belonging over balanced exchange. A media personality who is always available, never rejects us, and never creates awkward moments satisfies our social needs without the risks of genuine interaction.

This isn't inherently harmful. Parasocial connections can inspire creativity, model positive behavior, reduce stigma around mental health struggles, and motivate charitable action. The danger emerges when the object of affection isn't merely flawed, but actively dangerous—and we cannot see it.

The Four Pillars of the "Joe Effect"

The fictional Joe Goldberg provides a useful framework for understanding how online popularity can sanitize real violence. Four elements make him irresistible despite his crimes:

Controlled perspective. The narrative unfolds through Joe's eyes, inviting us to humanize his worldview and empathize with his motivations. We see his victims through his judgmental lens, not as full human beings.

Aesthetic optimization. Joe is portrayed by a conventionally attractive actor, filmed from flattering angles, delivering only his best lines. The presentation is designed to please.

Moral reframing. His victims are carefully characterized as bullies, misogynists, or negligent parents—people who, in Joe's estimation, deserve their fates. The narrative suggests a perverse sense of justice.

Devotion as disguise. Joe appears deeply committed to the very people he destroys. His obsession masquerades as love.

These four elements aren't limited to fiction. They are tools available to any social media personality—and when combined with the built-in loyalty of parasocial relationships, they create a powerful shield against accountability.

When Fiction Becomes Reality

The cases blur the line between dark fantasy and genuine horror.

Yuka Takaoka, a Tokyo Instagrammer whose delicate features earned her the moniker "too beautiful," stabbed a man nearly to death because he spoke to another woman. Her explanation was chilling in its simplicity: she loved him too much to control herself. Rather than universal condemnation, a disturbing subset of online commenters defended her. They expressed envy of such passionate devotion, framing violent possessiveness as romantic intensity.

Snow, a cosplay personality with a substantial following, maintained their "whimsical" online persona even after shooting someone at point-blank range. The aftermath included tone-deaf content that seemed to celebrate the violence. Yet their fanbase remained largely intact, praising their aesthetic and personality while minimizing the death they had caused.

Perhaps most disturbing is Randy Stair, the supermarket mass murderer who recorded his crimes and his preceding manifesto. To this day, adolescent fans relate to his content, dismissing his explicit obsessions with violence, sexual assault, and eugenics as "relatable" expressions of teen angst. His online persona—angry, alienated, railing against societal expectations—created a bridge of identification that spanned even mass murder.

The Psychology of Excuse

When online personalities commit terrible acts, their followers don't simply vanish. Instead, they engage in predictable patterns of rationalization:

The redemption narrative. Followers convince themselves they can "fix" the person they feel they know so well.

Sympathy for the devil. The influencer's suffering—real or performed—becomes the dominant frame, casting them as the true victim.

Systemic heroism. Serious crimes get reinterpreted as rebellion against oppressive structures, with the perpetrator recast as a tragic figure fighting unjust systems.

Notoriety as validation. The logic of "all press is good press" transforms criminal infamy into proof of authenticity or importance.

Shared victimhood. Perhaps most insidiously, followers begin to feel that they—the loyal audience—are the ones being persecuted when their idol faces consequences.

These aren't random reactions. They are the natural consequence of years spent consuming content designed to create exactly this kind of emotional investment. When someone has repeatedly told you that you complete them, that they couldn't succeed without you, that your support means everything—their crimes become, in a twisted way, your crisis too.

The Uncomfortable Truth

Social media invites us to watch strangers and feel like we know them. That one-way intimacy, when it encounters real moral failure, doesn't dissolve—it transforms. The same mechanisms that make parasocial relationships comforting make them dangerous: the absence of genuine reciprocity means there's no friction, no correction, no moment where the real person contradicts the constructed persona.

The influencer isn't selling a product. They are the product—a carefully managed experience of connection, validation, and belonging. When that product proves defective in the most serious way possible, the consumer's first impulse is often denial, then defense, then elaborate justification.

They're hoping to be the friend you always swore you'd help hide a body for. And thanks to the architecture of modern digital life, millions are ready to pick up the shovel.