TikTok users horrified after Jeffrey Dahmer ‘polaroid challenge’ goes viral
After the release of Netflix’s Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, its infamous serial killer and cannibal subject is back in the spotlight—again. This time, it’s all thanks to a sickening TikTok trend that’s currently gaining traction on the platform.
As shown in the limited-run series, Dahmer dismembered his victims and then took polaroid pictures of them in sexual poses. Dubbed as the ‘polaroid challenge’, the trend in question hence involves TikTok users looking up these images online and recording their reactions for the rest of the world to see.
As you can imagine, this has caused many people to call out creators jumping on the so-called trend for using Dahmer’s victims as bait for likes and views—which in itself is sickening. At the same time, it also begs the question as to why these disturbing images are available to the public in the first place.
The internet is rightly furious about this, with netizens taking to social media to speak out against this awful challenge. “People on TikTok are upset because they couldn’t find the polaroids Dahmer took of his victims? What is wrong with people? I’m actually sick to my stomach right now,” one person tweeted, while another added: “Only TikTok would make it a trend to look at and post a reaction to looking at the Jeffrey Dahmer polaroids.”
The polaroid challenge isn’t the only thing the new Netflix show is being criticised for. Following the success of Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, the victims’ families revealed they were never consulted about the making of the programme, and hence never gave their consent for it to be made, with relatives expressing their anger and grief on Twitter.
The ‘Milwaukee Monster’, before being beaten to death just two years into his prison sentence, has even previously described to the FBI that the best cuts of human flesh tastes like fillet mignon—a cut of meat taken from the smaller end of the tenderloin of a cow—and also admitted to his interviewer that he would cook “thighs, biceps and various internal organs” on a skillet before consuming them.
While true crime media is big business and enjoyed by many people across the globe, Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story is possibly the most controversial one on the bottomless list yet, with many issues arising in its wake—including the problematic resurgence of serial killer romanticisation with every new TikTok and YouTube Shorts edit. And with hype for the show still going strong, it seems like the story of one of the world’s most notorious killers, as well as all the controversies surrounding him, are here to stay for a while longer.
