Creator Q+A: Kris Collins

Dylan Wells: You initially were posting primarily on TikTok and really found a formula there for making humor videos. What translates from that kind of content to true crime, and how have you managed that transition?

Kris Collins: I was a hairdresser and I did lash extensions. And I wasn't able to do that [during the pandemic] so I just started to post videos. The one thing I knew how to do was make jokes, make characters, just be goofy. There's something really beautiful about making people laugh and building a community and positivity. That's what I did for the first three to four years, and I still love doing it. Comedy is still absolutely in my heart and soul, but I think there was a point where I wanted to try to do long-form content in a more impactful way, and something I really enjoyed doing besides writing comedy. 

Even before then, I enjoyed looking into cases myself, I would go into archives and cases and look deep into them on my own time. But it was kind of scary because my audience knew me as the comedy girl, like she just makes jokes. So it was pretty scary transitioning, and it was very important to me to approach each of those cases with the utmost respect for victims. And I knew it was going to be a tough balance, but I think I found a way to inject my personality — not necessarily comedy — but I think lightheartedness, along with being serious when I need to be serious, with true crime. And my audience, luckily, was okay with it.

DW: What factors do you think about when transitioning from consuming true crime and doing your own research for your own curiosity to figuring out how you were actually going to tell those stories for a broader audience? 

KC: I want to be as factually accurate as possible while still having my personality and my opinions in it to a certain degree, and just being thoughtful with the storytelling aspect, not holding anything back. I've been able to sit down and actually talk with a lot of victims, and they're like, "Yeah, they actually didn't add this, and this was really important to the story.” So I think doing my due diligence with that has become really important, and trying to reach out to as many people as possible, and trying to look at actual court documents rather than just a random article. Trying to find the right sources for that information is incredibly important. What's beautiful about being a creator is that your audience can hold you accountable to those degrees and be like, “You should look into this part of this case.” 

The first couple years I was completely doing it myself and trying to figure out how to do that, and I was going into court documents, going into archives, going into books. I developed my own process in that. But I also have an awesome writer, I've had a couple writers throughout this for the past couple years that help me. 

I will always know a case inside out, regardless of what a researcher or writer is helping me with, because I go off script a lot. I'm always the one structuring it out and how the story goes and what emphasis we need to put on, which is always the victims.

DW: How do you go about deciding which cases you want to devote an episode to? 

KC: The beautiful thing about being a creator is that my audience often chooses it. I tell my audience after every single video, “Please let me know what other cases you want me to look into.” Nine times out of 10, I will just look through my comments, find a case, look into it. … I try to just put more emphasis on the people whose lives were affected, like the families and the actual victims, because I feel like in a lot of documentaries or series, it's always all about the person that's doing the awful thing. 

DW: Once you decide on a case, what is the research process like, and how long does it take to produce an episode?

KC: It depends on the case, but it'll usually take at least weeks. I'll usually find one, I will do my own research on it, which will take days. I usually like to keep my videos around an hour to two hours, so that matters with the storytelling. Then I will structure out an outline of how the story should be told — where it is, who's involved, their history, how they tie into this next person down here. It just depends on the case. 

I try not to do cases that are ongoing. I don't want to be disrespectful to the family, because the news already does enough of that. 

DW: As someone who's both creating and consuming content in the space, where do you see the role of creators in telling these true crime stories?

KC: [In] the traditional media space, it's more “here's the story, and you know if you want to look up whatever you want to look up, you can look it up.” So I think there's just an aspect of the community being more impactful in that way. There's just more discussion, more availability to give back, and more accountability. I feel like because it's me, it's not just this big conglomerate or a studio or something, it's my integrity, my skills as being a quote-unquote reporter — which is weird to even say, I'm kind of a journalist in a way. 

DW: Why do you think true crime is such an enduring type of story that has so much reach?

KC: It makes sense, as humans mostly naturally just have a morbid curiosity for things, and I think naturally our brains don't necessarily like an open loop. We like mystery. We like to figure out how to solve that mystery. I think that's pretty natural. Being a woman, there's a safety aspect of it as well. I know when I was listening to it with my mom, when I was like 12 on our car rides, you could hear about the warning signs with a girl that got abducted, and how she got out of that situation, or how something maybe could have been prevented. 

I think we grow up with our heads on a swivel for good reason. I think it's very human, and I think listening or consuming that kind of content is almost just natural. That's why the true crime space for women as an audience is much more substantial than men, because when I'm walking out in the middle of the night on a on an empty street, I assume there's somebody else on that street that wants to kill me or something bad, and maybe that's a bad way of looking at things. But I think it's better than just being completely oblivious to it because it is very real and it's very scary. 

This Q+A is part of Verified, a newsletter that is published by Washington Post Creator, a new business outside The Washington Post’s newsroom that is focused on the creator economy and content partnerships with independent creators. Learn more about Washington Post Creator.