By centering victims, telling women’s stories, and acknowledging the everyday specter of violence that women deal with, My Favorite Murder gives me hope for a less horrifying, misogynistic world. Credit: Mandee Johnson

By centering victims, telling women’s stories, and acknowledging the everyday specter of violence that women deal with, My Favorite Murder gives me hope for a less horrifying, misogynistic world.

By centering victims, telling women’s stories, and acknowledging the everyday specter of violence that women deal with, My Favorite Murder gives me hope for a less horrifying, misogynistic world. Mandee Johnson

When faced with a too-charming stranger, an overly inquisitive Lyft driver, or another potential creep, “Fuck politeness!” is my guiding principle, and I have Georgia Hardstark and Karen Kilgariff to thank for it. Each week Hardstark and Kilgariff talk about murder on their comedic true crime podcast, My Favorite Murder, and each week I tell myself I’ll hold off on listening right away, so as to truly savor the new episode, and then I invariably press play anyway. I can’t help it. I’m a Murderino.

Since it launched on the Feral Audio network in January 2016, My Favorite Murder has developed a sizeable fanbase of self-described Murderinos, drawn more than 117,000 to a closed Facebook fan group, and climbed to number one on the iTunes comedy chart. “Fuck politeness” is one of Hardstark and Kilgariff’s many charming, off-the-cuff safety mantras, a jokey yet serious invocation to self-preservation derived from the cruel fact that bad people often take advantage of the way women are socialized to be deferential and polite. Other murder truisms include “Stay out of the forest,” “Toxic masculinity ruins the party again” (DOESN’T IT THOUGH), “Pepper spray first, apologize later,” “You’re in a cult, call your dad,” and each episode’s signoff: “Stay sexy; don’t get murdered!”