the same star stuff

everyone has a little bit of jeff dahmer within us.

that’s the point.

ultimately, it’s why we keep coming back to him.

maybe his attractiveness or the shocking nature of his crimes are what grab our attention at first, but it’s his undeniable, discomfiting relatability that makes us stay.

he is the dorian gray painting we hide in our attic, the scapegoat we use when we want to look Good and Righteous. as if we don’t all have some kind of depravity within ourselves. it might not be as bad or as obvious as his, not even close. but it’s there. to some degree, it is there.

we’re all made of the same star stuff. and jeff was fully, completely human, in the most shocking and grotesque and strangely beautiful way possible. he was just as human as anyone else, and that’s plain to see. anyone who worked with him closely could see his humanity clear as crystal. so to reconcile that with the monstrous actions he’s known for — that’s a huge challenge for most. and i get why.

nobody wants to be associated with that type of thing.

but neither did jeff.

he hated what he was, hated his urges, hated himself for finding pleasure in the most fucked-up shit imaginable. and yet he had that other side to him that craved it and would do anything to get it. he had a demon inside of him, and that demon WAS him. it was and it wasn’t. he was a true gemini, a personality split down the middle.

perhaps that’s what he was brought to earth to teach us.

it’s easy for us to separate ourselves from people like john wayne gacy and ted bundy. though they were human too, they were obvious psychopathic sadists who loved to hurt people. the vast majority of us can easily make a distinction between Us and Them.

but you can’t do that nearly so easily with dahmer. and people most certainly try. oh yes, they do. they’ll find any reason possible to deny that he had a likable, relatable side to him, all because they want a clean and simple answer.

a clean and simple answer isn’t possible, though. not when it comes to jeff.

he forces us to think outside the box.

and he forces us all to face ourselves.

[ • dahmers-ashes • ]