How much would you pay for an item that you always wanted? Hundreds of dollars, thousands of dollars, more? Would you compete and fight for it with someone who you have never met before? Well, this is what thousands of people do every day on EBay and other auctions sites. Baseball cars, furniture, music, whatever can be sold is sold and people compete for this item. They compete in the sense of bidding the most money to get that item and competing against others, in their circle of collectors, to get the rarest or most prized item. Some might not see this buying and getting rare and prized items as a sport but it is. I think it is because of the bidding and competing power in a dark section of auction world called murderabilia.
From my personal aspect, I have always been curious to the dark side of human nature, serial killers, weird artifacts, dark moments in history, stuff like that is fascinating to me. So, when I heard, and eventually read, about murderabilia it is rather interesting. Murderabilia is a term coined by Andy Kahan, director of the Houston-based Mayor’s Crime Victims Office.[1] In simple terms, it is the sale and collecting of items that previously owned, created, or part of a crime by a serial killer, rapist, dictator, or someone of evil intent. It ranges from letters, clothing, weapons, to artwork and jewelry. Some collectors have contacted and even made friends with these serial killers, rapist, etc. Numerous websites and auction sites are dedicated to the sell of these items.
On serialkillersink.com, they sell photos, handwritten letters, and drawings, in a nice and alphabetized list, from Ed Gein to Richard Ramirez. And they also they have subcategories, like “Black Killers”, “Gay Killers”, and my personal favorite, the “Satanic and Female Killers”. This website that includes everything, a little shop of horrors; additionally they make jewelry with pictures of your favorite serial killer. Other sites sell historical items, like Benito Mussolini’s letters and other historical boogey men. Of course, the question is why are these thing sold and bought? This is where the idea of the game comes from, people like different things but all people like things that are rare or one of a kind. Something that can never be reproduced ever, it is like art, films, music, or even comic books. However, because items are from the scum of society, many people have problems with it. They think the serial killers are getting the money from the sell, actually that is wrong because of the Son of Sam Law. The Son of Sam law “is any law designed to keep criminals from profiting from the publicity of their crimes, often by selling their stories to publishers. While the term is most often used in the United States, it is also sometimes applied to laws passed with similar provisions in other nations.”[2], so Charles Manson is not sitting in lap of luxury in his four by nine cell. There is no real demographic to the people who buy from these sites or murderablia. Some of the people who buy these artifacts are from the CIA, FBI, and other criminal agencies. “Law enforcement agencies can always buy a lot of letters, there’s one [department] in the US… They said they were doing handwriting analysis. They made two very large orders.”[3], says Eric Holler the runner of SerialKillerInk.com.
Most are still not convince that this is a game. However, it is and if there are ever rules for what a game is, collecting murderous artifacts is a game. To some it fun, to some its make them happy, it can become competitive and nasty. In similarity to Pokémon, there is this feeling of wanting to collect everything a certain serial killer has owned or wrote. Additionally, if some of you can wrap your head around it, there is this sense of escapism to collecting. Like a video game, collecting takes you to another place away from the stresses of daily life. It is no different from collecting artwork of Van Gogh, or collecting every single first vinyl pressing of David Bowie. I think collecting, in general, is a game. And it does not matter what it is that I, you, and everyone else collects, it is still a game. A game of being better than someone else, happy for a short amount of time, and addictive enough to keep on going.
[1] http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1629655,00.html
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_Sam_law
[3] http://www.vice.com/read/these-guys-sell-the-art-and-personal-effects-of-rapists-and-serial-killers-456