If you haven’t yet watched Baby Reindeer, a story that begins with its star Richard Gadd’s experience with a stalker, you probably have a good reason. It will not be because, for instance, nobody has recommended it, told you how extraordinary it is, or powerful, or unique, and it won’t be because you haven’t heard of it – its success has been startling (as I type it’s at the top of Netflix’s UK and US charts weeks after its release) and its themes have made headlines. It could be, as is the case with a friend of mine, that its subject matter hits too close to home, and however unsettling it is for me to watch, for them the prospect feels like it might pull a thread and unravel everything, not least the damage caused by police failures, but we’ll come to that.
Despite Gadd’s nuanced portrayal of the woman who stalked him, and his beautifully strange story of love and trauma, some fans of the show quickly created a horrible sort of sequel when they attempted to expose the stalker on social media. Historic tweets were urgently screengrabbed, photographs posted side by side, she was quote-tweeted as if a celebrity – the character’s name was trending for days. On Instagram, Gadd urged them to stop. “Please don’t speculate on who any of the real-life people could be. That’s not the point of our show.”
Watching the digital unmasking unfold over the course of a morning was a disturbing and confusing experience. I had no time for the argument that naming the woman could be in any way ethical, come on, or that retribution was necessary, please, or even that we would feel differently if the stalker had been male. Beyond defamation concerns, her identity should have remained anonymous for reasons of empathy – in an earlier interview Gadd said, “I wasn’t dealing with someone who felt calculated or insidious. I felt I was dealing with someone who was vulnerable, somebody who was mentally ill.” But just as I felt a grinding kind of affection for the characters he’d written, each one scrabbling to survive, or seek connection, or be seen, part of me could also identify with online fans’ sticky desire. These were just people moved like me, wanting to explore the story’s real-life contours, wanting to know more.
We do this, don’t we? I say we, I mean those of us trained on true crime and raised on social media, who increasingly approach art as if looking for clues. The impulse is to find an ending to the story. But the act of searching, of sleuthing online, doesn’t just risk the safety of characters potentially unmasked, or prevent other artists from sharing their stories, it complicates how we, as viewers, understand trauma, and eventually threatens to align us with the abusers themselves. Last week as I valiantly closed tabs, exited social media, detached myself from fans seeking villains, I saw clearly and with some dark irony that the urge to expose a stalker, to dig, uninvited, into their past, was on a familiar continuum of human behaviour.
This unmasking played out during National Stalking Awareness Week, in which the government announced measures that will make it easier for police to apply for stalking protection orders. While there are still issues around their efficiency, these orders put in place prohibitions on perpetrators, alongside requirements like mental health assessments and the surrender of their computers and phones. The new measures attempt to address the fact that, while it’s a huge problem, with about 7 million people in England and Wales having been stalked, only 6.6% of reported stalkers are charged with a crime, and 1.7% convicted. Most get away with it.
Part of that may be down to our own enduring misunderstandings around stalking. Many people still minimise its impact, or romanticise it, or laugh it off. Victims might be reluctant to report it, dwelling in shame, or second guessing themselves about an abusive ex, or unable to unpick the criminal behaviour within the proddings of an Instagram acquaintance. As last week’s unmasking illustrated, stalking has become increasingly easy to carry out – the internet provides infinite pathways into people’s private lives, yet at the same time social media can obfuscate evidence that proves a crime has taken place. But the larger problems are systemic issues across agencies dealing with stalking cases. In 2022 more than half our Police and Crime Commissioners made a commitment to the Suzy Lamplugh Trust to increase reports of stalking in their jurisdiction, but last week it reported that only five forces have done so, with 67% actually recording a decrease. Vast gaps in their data mean it’s impossible to properly scrutinise the criminal justice system’s response to stalking. It is depressingly clear now how the current system is failing victims.
Perhaps the most straightforward way for many to understand stalking is to interrogate their own unpleasant, obsessional impulses. You’d have thought we might have learned our lesson about armchair sleuthing by now. Last year a dispersal order was issued to break up groups of “amateur detectives” investigating the death of Nicola Bulley, and in the US murder cases have been derailed by people posting theories online. While social media offers paths of contact to all, its algorithms also encourage and reward internet sleuths, sometimes leading otherwise empathic, curious people to cross lines, and upend strangers’ lives. While Baby Reindeer invited us to explore a paradoxical response to abuse and a stalker, its recent fallout forces us to ask when the rush to find her becomes stalking itself.
Email Eva at e.wiseman@observer.co.uk or follow her on X @EvaWiseman
