Joe Goldberg works in a bookshop and seems the perfect man: cultured, sensitive, attentive. When a woman interests him, he does not follow her down the street — he does not need to. He types her name, and within minutes reconstructs her whole life from what she has posted herself: her approximate address, her job, her friends, her fears, her plans for tonight. From there he orchestrates a meticulous campaign of stalking that he narrates, in the first person, as a love story. You is chilling because it puts us inside the predator's head and because the predator is of our time: not the monster in the alley, but the one who harvests online the intimacy we leave in plain sight. And to understand why he thrives, we must update one of criminology's most practical theories.
// The theoryThe crime triangle, now on the screen
We already met, with Anton Chigurh, routine activity theory (Cohen and Felson, 1979): crime happens when three elements coincide in space and time — a motivated offender, a suitable target and the absence of a capable guardian. Its brilliant idea is that crime depends not so much on how much evil there is, but on how many opportunities are left open to it; and those opportunities are shaped by our everyday routines. Cohen and Felson framed it to explain why crime rose as postwar routines changed (empty homes, portable goods). The internet has caused a change of routines a thousand times greater — and with it, an explosion of opportunities for predators like Joe.
Carried into cyberspace (what criminologists like Majid Yar and Bradford Reyns call online routine activities), the theory explains digital stalking with unsettling clarity. The suitable target multiplies: we post where we are, with whom, what hurts us and what we long for, geolocated and in real time — we expose ourselves to a stranger with a constancy that would be unthinkable in the physical world. And the capable guardian vanishes: on the street there are witnesses, neighbours, locks; online, a stalker can watch you for months without anyone seeing, shielded by anonymity and distance. Joe is no smarter than a stalker of thirty years ago: it is that internet routines have served his victims to him on a plate, and dismissed every guardian.
We expose ourselves, and the guardian disappears
The key Joe illustrates is how technology has rewritten two of the triangle's three corners. Our digital routines turn us all into more visible targets — the intimacy we once kept at home now lives on a public profile — and at the same time withdraw the guardians: stalking takes place in a space without witnesses, without neighbours, without friction. Joe forces no door; he enters through the ones his victims leave open by sharing their lives. And the most disturbing part is that the whole system is designed for us to leave those doors open: platforms reward exposure, and what for a healthy relationship is closeness is, for a predator, a map. Routine activity theory, updated, reveals that digital crime does not require a world with more monsters — only a world with more open windows and fewer eyes to watch them.
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// The subjectThe voice that turns stalking into love
What makes Joe a unique case — and not just a run-of-the-mill stalker — is his narration. The series locks us inside his head, and from there every monstrous act — spying, lying, isolating, killing — arrives wrapped in the language of love, protection and destiny. "I'm not the bad guy here," he tells us, and a part of us, seduced by his warm voice and his reasons, almost believes him. That is You's sharpest insight: the digital predator rarely sees himself as one. Joe does not stalk despite loving; he believes that stalking is loving — surveillance as care, control as devotion, jealousy as proof of commitment. And that self-justification is not his alone: it is stalking's cultural alibi, the one that confuses possession with romance in a thousand songs and films. Joe is terrifying because his logic — "I do it for you," "I know you better than anyone," "we are meant for each other" — is one we have heard, unalarmed, from characters we called romantic.
Joe Goldberg
// The crackCareful: the blame is never the victim's
Routine activity theory carries a danger that turns especially poisonous with stalking: by focusing on the target and the guardian, it can slide towards blaming the victim. "Why did she post so much?", "why did she accept his message?", "why didn't she lock her profile down better?" — the same logic that in the physical world asks "why was she out at that hour?". It is essential to be blunt: responsibility for stalking lies entirely with the stalker. Joe chooses to spy, lie and kill; no amount of exposure by his victims justifies a gram of what he does. The theory describes the opportunities that make crime easier, it does not apportion blame for their being seized — confusing the two is to lay upon the victim the weight of a crime that belongs solely to the perpetrator. To expose yourself is not to consent; sharing your life is not an invitation for a predator to hijack it.
The other crack is the usual one: routine activities explain where and how stalking happens — the opportunities that make it possible — but not why Joe is Joe. It takes the "motivated offender" for granted and does not probe his obsession, his sick idea of love, his history. That requires other lenses — the psychology of fixation, the cultural learning that romanticises possession. The theory is a tool of prevention, not of understanding the monster: it serves to reduce opportunities (better privacy, safer platforms, digital guardians), not to explain the mind that exploits them. And both are needed: to close the windows and to understand — and disarm — the one who stalks behind them.
Guardians for the digital world
Joe Goldberg matters because digital stalking is not fiction: it is one of the fastest-growing crimes of the social media age, and it affects women disproportionately. Routine activity theory, used well, points to concrete levers — not to watch the victims, but to restore the guardians the internet withdrew: platforms designed with safety ahead of engagement, real privacy tools switched on by default, legal and police responses that take cyberstalking as seriously as the physical kind, and a culture that stops confusing control with love. Joe's lesson is not "expose yourself less" — that is blaming the prey — but "let us build a digital space with guardians, where exposing your own life does not mean being at the mercy of the first predator who knows how to search". The monster of our time does not stalk in alleys. It stalks in the notifications, and it has been doing so for far too long with no one watching.
This is why You unsettles more than any ordinary thriller: it makes us Joe's accomplices for hours and, in doing so, teaches us how easy it is to dress stalking up as romance — and how exposed we all are in a world designed for us to share without brakes. His seductive voice is the warning: the digital predator does not inspire fear, he inspires trust, because he speaks the language of love while doing the hunter's work. Routine activity theory reminds us that he is no evil genius, but an opportunist that an ecosystem without guardians has made lethal. Closing those windows and posting those guardians is not paranoia: it is the only way for the intimacy we share to stop being, for people like Joe, a treasure map.
Three key takeaways
- Routine activities (Cohen and Felson) hold that crime arises from a motivated offender + a suitable target + the absence of a guardian. The internet rewrites it (Yar, Reyns): our digital routines multiply exposed targets and dissolve guardians. Joe Goldberg is that predator — he harvests online what his victims post.
- His "besotted lover" voice ("I'm not the bad guy") reveals how stalking disguises itself as love: surveillance as care, control as devotion — a cultural alibi that confuses possession with romance.
- The CRITICAL crack: the theory describes opportunities, it does NOT apportion blame — responsibility for stalking lies entirely with the stalker; to expose yourself is not to consent. Prevention means restoring digital guardians (privacy, safe platforms, legal response), not demanding that victims hide.
Sources · further reading
- Cohen, L. E. y Felson, M. (1979). «Social Change and Crime Rate Trends: A Routine Activity Approach». American Sociological Review, 44(4).
- Yar, M. (2005). «The Novelty of Cybercrime: An Assessment in Light of Routine Activity Theory». European Journal of Criminology, 2(4).
- Reyns, B. W., Henson, B. y Fisher, B. S. (2011). «Being Pursued Online: Applying Cyberlifestyle-Routine Activities Theory to Cyberstalking Victimization». Criminal Justice and Behavior, 38(11).
- Spitzberg, B. H. y Hoobler, G. (2002). «Cyberstalking and the Technologies of Interpersonal Terrorism». New Media & Society, 4(1).
Case-file questionsFrequently asked questions
¿Quién es Joe Goldberg?
Joe Goldberg («Joe») es un villano de You, analizado en KRIMINIS con la lente de la criminología. Joe Goldberg watches you walk into his bookshop, types your name and, within minutes, knows where you live, where you work, who your friends are and what you will do tonight — everything you posted yourself.
¿Por qué Joe Goldberg se convierte en villano?
You and routine activity theory in the digital age: the stalker no longer needs to follow you down the street — you yourself post where you are, with whom and when. Joe Goldberg is the predator that internet routines manufacture: a motivated offender, targets that expose themselves, and a world without guardians.
¿Qué teoría criminológica explica a Joe Goldberg?
El caso de Joe Goldberg se analiza desde la Actividades rutinarias. Routine activity theory says crime happens when a motivated offender, a suitable target and the absence of a capable guardian coincide. The internet has rewritten it: our digital routines — social media, geolocation, constant exposure — multiply suitable targets and dissolve guardians. Joe Goldberg is the predator that ecosystem manufactures: a stalker who does not pursue on the street but harvests online the intimacy his victims publish. And his "besotted lover" voice holds the theory's greatest danger: blaming the prey for exposing itself.
