Alex North’s The Shadows reflects the modern phenomenon of online true crime communities, which often function as digital campfires for generating folklore that blurs the lines between reality and fiction. In the 21st century, amateur “websleuths” on platforms like Reddit, websleuths.com, and CrimeHQ.com have delved deeply into cold cases, sometimes with dangerous consequences. A prominent example is the 2013 death of Elisa Lam at the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles. After police released a disorienting video of Lam in an elevator, online communities developed elaborate supernatural theories, which went viral but distracted from the tragic facts of her mental health crisis.

Although amateur detectives online have been responsible for solving some cold crimes, critics question the ethics of both their investigations and their methods. They cite the dangers of a lack of accountability, pointing out how baseless accusations can be made online with dangerous consequences for the target but no accountability for the accusers. These accusations can also result in a mob mentality that leads to harassment, threats, and doxxing. They can also hinder law enforcement investigations, creating an environment in which witnesses are reluctant to come forward (Davis, Mike and Hans Anderson. “The ethical dilemma posed by online sleuths.” KUOW, 1 Dec. 2022).

Online sleuthing has led to innocent people being targeted in real life as their information is revealed, leading to harassment and even dangerous situations. One prominent example is the online amateur investigation into the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013, when amateur investigators targeted several innocent people, in particular, Sunil Tripathi, who had been missing before the bombing and whose family suffered threats and harassment until the real bomber was discovered (Lee, Dave. “Boston bombing: How internet detectives got it very wrong.” BBC, 19 Apr. 2013). In the wake of this incident in particular, the danger of online detecting by amateur investigators came under greater scrutiny. More recently, online investigations into the University of Idaho killings targeted several innocent people, including a professor at the school, and led to no meaningful contributions to solving the crime. Law enforcement noted that because they withheld information, a common practice in an online investigation, it led to public frustration with their perceived lack of progress, which can lead to “amateur detectives determined to crack it” (Ortiz, Eric. “How internet sleuthing in unsolved University of Idaho slayings can be ‘extremely dangerous.’” NBC News, 30 Nov. 2022).

This real-world dynamic is mirrored in the novel’s fictional forum, “The Unsolved and the Unknown,” where users mythologize the 25-year-old murder committed by Charlie Crabtree. They treat Crabtree not as a teenage killer but as a supernatural figure who successfully used a ritual murder to “disappear from the real world and live […] in the land of dreams forever” (67). The forum transforms a local tragedy into an aspirational horror story, directly inspiring the copycat killing at the heart of the novel’s plot. By grounding its supernatural horror elements in the verifiable social phenomenon of online sleuthing, The Shadows explores how collective fixation on true crime and digital misinformation can manifest as real-world violence.