But then that leads to me the question of, who’s watching these things, and why? The article says they got quite a lot of views. Is it just for shock value? I don’t quite understand.

Once again the entertainment can claim to be “educational” or “informative” and piously claim it doesn’t “condone” what it’s presenting (for entertainment purposes) but “true crime” hogs will gobble it up and oink all the while anyway.