Then Ten Stages of Making a Murderer-Type Subreddits

1. MaM is released on Netflix. A nation is outraged! People log into reddit to discuss the case. They are overwhelming supportive of the idea that Avery is innocent. Not just "not guilty", but straight up framed.

2. There is some inevitable public backlash, from Kratz initially, and then from the think piece monkeys in the national media. A few doubters appear. New posts focus on how Avery's chance at a fair trial and not his innocence is the point of MaM.

3. After several weeks of sleuthing, some major doubters are more vocal with important and troubling questions over whether the documentary and the defense team underestimated key pieces of evidence (as there are in most cases involving future exonerees), in this case focusing around the validity of the EDTA test. These points are articulated and argued well in a non-aggressive way. They are largely ignored.

4. Soon, more and more troll-y posts appear. "Hey guilters, will you kill yourselves if Avery is exonerated"? People ask leading questions and get honest answers. There are a lot of complaints about "the hive mind" and taunts like, "That's what I think, here come the downvotes."

5. Then, slowly but surely, arrive the True Crime TV Show Junkies. Some come straight from r/serialpodcast. They are loud, aggressive, hate defense attorneys, and think pretty much everyone accused of any crime is guilty. They don't care about nuance or your feelings. Avery is a psychopath...look at the evidence.

6. Michael Spratt and Emilie Taman join reddit and do an AMA. They become part of the reddit community. At first it's hunky dory, though there is some spirited debate...

7. ...but eventually things go downhill. Spratt's entire career history is questioned in posts. He and Taman are called socialist apologists and careerists ("They should call the Docket Podcast 'Milking a Murderer!'") References to Zellner go beyond "she's attention seeking" to "she's probably in love with Avery", "She's an attention whore" to even more sexist stuff. There is more pressure on the mods to preserve civility.

8. The mods feel the heat and begin to impose bans on the loudest aggressors. Feeling though that they should be impartial, they also ban those loudly arguing for Avery's innocence. People start whinging endlessly about minor changes to sub rules.

9. There is major backlash now from everyone; at the show, the subreddit, the mods, the universe. Soon, "pro Avery" camps split off and form their own secret subs where they spend as much time snarking about the main sub as they do discussing actual evidence. Meanwhile, posts on the main sub focus on the bleeding heart agenda of the Pro Avery crowd.

10. Almost a year later, Zellner is still working away at the case, because these things take time and the law isn't a magic truth beam that shines light on all that is dark. A new show focusing on another wrongful conviction airs on Amazon. The nation is in outrage again! (MaMS2 was a dud). Meanwhile, a major hearing on the chance of Avery getting retrial is buried by all the noise of the new show, and the subreddit is mostly a shell of its former self.

Source: former r/serialpodcast subscriber.