Serial killer Richard Ramirez gathered hundreds of female admirers in the 1980s after being arrested for the murder of at least 13 people in the US.
Physical attraction, confusion with sexy actors or the “I can fix it” phenomenon: what explains the romanticization and attraction to criminals?
There is a connection between the social network Tiktokwhich has around 1.50 billion users, and the sexual attraction of women to criminals.
The conclusion is from an investigation at Deviant Behavior and addresses this phenomenon, known as hibristophilia. And blame it on romanticization constant of criminals in videos published on the social network, which especially attracts young women.
The study aimed to explore how hybristophilia manifests itself in generation Zsince, according to the authors, previous similar studies focused mainly on women already in relationships with convicts and ignored the diversity of sexual orientations and cultural contexts.
The investigation was conducted in two phases. The first consisted of a content analysis of 66 videos and 91 comments published on TikTok between 2020 and 2024. Only videos that glorified or romanticized criminals were included, while educational or critical content was excluded, in order to isolate those that could reflect or influence hybristophilic attitudes.
The 7 patterns
Seven major themes emerged from this analysis, explains . One pattern detected was the halo effectwhereby the physical attractiveness of an offender influenced users’ perception. Many of the comments minimized the seriousness of crimes committed by individuals considered attractive, sometimes suggesting that they were “misunderstood” or even innocent.
Another pattern, classified as actor-offender transferinvolved the attraction of actors who played famous criminals—such as Zac Efron as Ted Bundy or Evan Peters as Jeffrey Dahmer—and then the series or film was transferred to real criminals. A kind of confusion is created here among the spectators.
The study also highlighted the psychological and emotional appeal of offenders. Traits associated with antisocial personality disorders have often been romanticized. Fictional characters, such as Joe Goldberg from the You series, were described as ideal partners by users, despite their violent and obsessive behavior.
Another standard, designated “I can fix it”, revealed users confident in their ability to reform an offender, minimizing the risks of such a relationship.
A different pattern, “Irony of Generation Z”involved dark humor and sarcasm when discussing serious crimes. And finally, a small group expressed victim fantasiesimagining being harmed by a criminal he found attractive.
The second phase of the investigation used an online survey with 95 women between the ages of 18 and 27, all frequent users of TikTok. Participants reported their engagement with content that romanticizes criminals and completed assessments measuring hybristophilia, empathy, and dark personality traits—narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy—through a new Hybristophilia Scale with 20 items.
The results showed an important difference between exposure and engagement. Just viewing the content did not predict higher hybristophilia scores, while actively watching or “liking” the videos was an action taken into account. Personality traits also played an important role: both Machiavellianism and psychopathy predicted higher scores, with psychopathy being the strongest predictor. Empathy and narcissism, on the other hand, did not show a significant association.
The results are in line with previous research, such as studies showing that attractive defendants receive more favorable treatmentand that manipulative traits may underlie the attraction to power dynamics.
The researchers acknowledge, however, limitations, including the mostly Western sample and a small number of trans women, which may reduce the generalizability of the results.
