Rot in hell, dude!
Jared
Ok guys. I’m 27 years old. Things generally don’t really phase me much anymore. When I decided to turn on the Jared Fogel documentary, it’s not because I thought I would particularly *enjoy* it, but because I feel like I mostly missed the story over the years and wanted to know what really occurred. Usually you can’t watch a documentary about a crime and know for sure that the accused person is guilty, as many tragic crimes are incredibly nuanced. We all like to joke that “OJ did it,” when in reality, there is enough reasonable doubt that exists within the circumstances of the case and how it was handled that the verdict could really be argued either way.
That being said, Jared did it. I truly did not understand the magnitude of his crimes and the depth of his evil until I saw this (very short and somehow still incredibly traumatizing) documentary.
Jared Fogel is a monster, unequivocally, hence the title “Jared From Subway: Catching a Monster.” By the way, can we talk really quickly about how brutal that title is? First of all, tough break for Subway to be linked to this pedophile forever. They say that there’s no such thing as bad press, but the one thing you absolutely don’t want to be linked with in any shape or form is pedophilia. But also, when I first heard the title I was like, “catching?” Did we have a hard time tracking him down? Was he on the run? It turns out that, in a way, kinda.
I didn’t realize how hard it was to catch a pedophile and collect enough proof to charge an individual with these crimes until now. I thought that this was the average FBI raid that you hear about on the news; files seized, behavior tracked online. I don’t know how this works. Jared, on the other hand, was caught by an informant. I’m not gonna say who and not gonna say how because it truly is a wild ride of a story, but this operation was so comprehensive that I have true and lasting sympathy for Rochelle Herman. Without her, Jared might still be free and committing offenses.
I don’t want to spoil anything because it is worth consuming to a certain extent, but I don’t really know how I feel about this being made in the first place. It is a fascinating story and there are some selfless and angelic people who went above and beyond, sacrificing their peace and sanity to stop this man, but I think it’s more complicated than that. There are so many victims of Jared Fogel’s crimes and the nature of the crimes is so unimaginably sickening that it feels like entertainment porn. Are we as a society really so jaded that we would consume 3 hours of some of the worst pedophilic anecdotes ever and immortalize those stories on television to the detriment of the victims? I just hope that all 14 of them are getting paid and we’re asked permission for the story to air. I think that should be common practice and, if possible, mandatory in circumstances like these. If someone wants to make a documentary about my trauma for the world to see eternally, all I’m saying is, I’d expect royalties.
Fuck Jared Fogel. Rochelle Herman for president. Discovery … I’m watching you.