From Baby Reindeer to Taylor Swift, how amateur sleuths

In the social media age, artists are using their trauma to bolster their relatability, while dramas are often thinly veiled personal testimonies. The unvarnished truth may be irresistible, but is it bringing out the rubberneck in all of us?

I recently read a novel, Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy, that, from the start, I understood to be a work of fiction. Instantly, I was hooked by this immersive, gut-wrenching tale of a woman overwhelmed by the gruelling labour and absolute love that characterises early motherhood. Yet by the halfway mark, I was seriously itching for my phone. Not because I wanted a distraction, but because I desperately needed to know one thing: was it true?

Late April, 2024: three things dominate the pop culture conversation. Netflix series Baby Reindeer is the “true story” – as per the title card – of comedian Richard Gadd’s experiences of being stalked by an older woman and sexually assaulted by an industry mentor. A bracingly self-lacerating attempt to relay the knotty psychological toll of that abuse, it quickly racked up tens of millions of views. But for some it wasn’t quite revealing enough. Soon, online sleuths were searching for the real real story: apparently uncovering the actual identity of Gadd’s stalker, as well as that of the man who sexually assaulted him – a development that attracted huge controversy, wall-to-wall press coverage and even discussion in parliament.