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Netflix viewership’s obsession with serial killers holds strong as a steamy series dominates the charts

True crime or not, murder is where the money's at.

'You' Season 4
Photo via Netflix

Hot off the heels of the highly controversial Monster: Dahmer: A Jeffrey Dahmer Story dominating Netflix’s charts late last year, a similar spark has been reignited this week with the first part of You season four rocketing to the top of Netflix’s charts. 

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Unsurprisingly, the latest outing of the Penn Badgley-led murderous drama secured the top spot on the Netflix platform this week, with a staggering 92 million hours viewed.  However, the dominance of You doesn’t start and stop there. 

It would appear that the hype has drawn in a whole new audience for the show (or just triggered mass rewatching), as You season one crept into the number four spot, and season three is also sitting pretty at number nine. Between all three of the charting You seasons, there have been over 122 million hours watched this week, per data from Netflix’s Top 10.

The furor surrounding You is pretty understandable, given that we thought the series’ latest European outing was great – and critics at large seem to be in unanimous agreement, with the fourth season sitting at a 90 percent critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Audiences have viewed it less favorably, with a score of 64 percent at the time of writing. 

While it’s significantly less worrisome to have a confusing crush on You’s leading man Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) than it is on a real-world serial killer, that hasn’t stopped the series’ star from bashing his own character, and calling out his bosses at Netflix for continually fetishizing murderers.