Jeffrey Dahmer : ett monster som återuppstått genom fankultur på TikTok

Sammanfattning: In this paper we examine TikTok trends relating to the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer and the series about him, ”Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” (Brennan, Murphy 2022). Interest lies in how the fans and anti-fans of the series express themselves through video and text, as well as the role TikTok-creators play in the democratization of the media landscape. Naturally there is also an interest in the factors that drive fandom toward serial killers, which is a broad, complex question. Therefore we narrow down to asking what kinds of opinions people have of Dahmer on Twitter and TikTok, which drives the discussion of the monster's cultural relevance and fan culture. Through netnographic observations of TikTok videos, we find that most Dahmer trends revolve around some form of imitation, usually through costumes or reenactments of scenes from the series. We also observe the opinions of fans and anti-fans on Twitter. The majority of the videos we found lack originality, as the creators behind them are simply following trends. There are however exceptions, with creators that personalize the narrative in the series through original dialogue. We conclude that the existence of content from amateur creators, whether deemed controversial or not, is vital in balancing out the power between established producers and amateurs.