Is the Internet not going too far to make people laugh at the ruins of sordid stories of serial killers? This is the question posed by Mathias’ testimony, in the documentary Serial killer: autopsy of a fascination, broadcast this Friday on France 5. As a young student, he meets a man on a dating application who invites him to spend the evening at his place. Once there, his date suggests that he go take a shower. But when he opens the bathroom door, Mathias discovers a corpse lying on the floor as well as pieces of flesh in the sink. Facing the camera, the trapped man recounts the consequences of this hoax and the post-traumatic shocks suffered subsequently.
There are unfortunately several dozen of this kind of story. Since the hype of the series Jeffrey Dahmer, content creators who use hidden cameras follow the same modus operandi: dress in a blonde wig and big glasses like the American serial killer in order to scare several visitors to their fake home. On different sites, victims are tricked into thinking of having a pleasant evening or buying a beautiful piece of furniture only to finally run away, frightened, after discovering crime scenes. Sometimes these bad jokes even end up in court. Last January, the YouTuber La Menace was accused before the Bordeaux criminal court of usurpation of quality and violence for having staged a false crime scene. The prosecutor then requested a fine of 800 euros, three months suspended prison sentence and a citizenship training course.
A means of prevention, according to a YouTuber
At the trial, the civil party’s lawyer, Maître Chloé Mondon, underlined the seriousness of the acts leaving “a real trauma today and real after-effects which remain”. The objective behind this trial? Raise awareness of these subjects and obtain “awareness” from videographers, the lawyer hoped.
However, among content creators, these hoaxes are a success… As evidenced by the comments under the different videos. “You do the role so well”, “How did you manage to be serious for the first person, I’m having fun”, “The incredible disguise”, “Part two, please”, we read among the reactions to a video published a year ago on the Cam off account, followed by a million subscribers. Behind the disguise of Jeffrey Dahmer, we find Anthony who has in turn decided to trap a buyer from the Bon Coin à la Jeffrey Dahmer. But above all he sees this video as a means of prevention. “All our hidden cameras and social experiments have a message at the end. We wanted to show people that there are crazy people everywhere and that you shouldn’t go into just anyone’s house.”
“We even got punched”
Anthony understands the shock. “Of course there is some psychological violence. When people see a dead body, I understand that they can be shocked.” The content creator also paid the price in the reaction of his targets when he admitted the prank to them. “We even got punched,” he admits. But, on the phone, Anthony seems to minimize the repercussions. “Someone who is sane, they are going to be shocked at the time. We’ll tell him it’s a hidden camera, it might take him a while to come back down, think about it the same evening, the next day. But then it’s over.” After the trial of his fellow YouTuber La Menace, Anthony struggles to understand the content creator’s conviction. “I don’t understand why this is being taken to court. People see violence every day on the Internet and on television, he points out, citing the film The exorcism. People don’t file complaints after seeing it.”
If he assures that no man died, Anthony does not intend to continue with hidden horror cameras, which is not his favorite theme. “I just want to send a message and today I think the message has been sent.” At the time, the creator of the Cam off account had watched the Netflix series on Dahmer “because it was super hype”. “But it didn’t do me anything. I assure you, I don’t have a poster of Jeffrey Dahmer in my room, I’m not a fool.”