Netflix’s Don’t F**k with Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer, which unexpectedly (for many viewers) is not simply about fucking with cats in mean ways, really resonated with viewers when it hit Netflix at the tail end of 2019. The short docuseries is about famed Canadian killer Luka Magnotta, who is somewhat lesser known in the U.S. It’s also told through the eyes of a Facebook Closed group, one of whom had no idea the docuseries would be as popular as it ended up being.
Speaking to local news station NBC 3 Las Vegas, resident Deanna Thompson, who has become a known name thanks to her contributions to Don’t F**k with Cats as well as the research she did online to try to draw attention to Luka Magnotta.
I thought, no one was going to watch this. I thought it would be shown, and just be done. All of this is mind-blowing to me. I'm flabbergasted.
One thing that is different about Don’t Fuck with Cats is the angle it takes to tell its story. Instead of focusing on Luka Magnotta’s alleged crimes, which start with cat killing and move into the death of a young man named Jun Lin, much of the documentary focuses on two Internet sleuths, Deanna Thompson aka Baudi Moovan and “John Green,” who tried to track the ID of the online cat killer before witnessing the human crime online. The game of cat and mouse gets dangerous for the Internet users during the course of their research as well.
There has been some criticism of the graphic nature of the crimes shown on the Netflix program, which does come with a TV-MA warning and a note that there are disturbing images and animal harm in the Netflix docuseries. It's also been simply difficult for some Netflix subscribers to even get through the material. Although the camera cuts away with some images of the killings, more is shown of the horrific crimes than you'd get on, say, an episode of Dateline.
And even Deanna Thompson says it is difficult to grapple with the fact she is a known person now, noting that it’s not for a fun reason that attention was drawn to herself and the people she has met online.
My reaction is just kind of bittersweet. I really appreciate the attention and accolades and whatnot, but I also cringe a little bit because someone died.
The Netflix documentary both opens and closes on Deanna Thompson, who along with sharing details about her experience with Luka Magnotta, also speaks in the documentary of the hazards of giving killers like Luka Magnotta the attention they seem to crave. She closes out the documentary by asking how much people online are complicit and whether or not we should "turn off the machine" at some point and just let cases like these go.
It’s a chilling ending to a documentary that has given Luka Magnotta a lot of attention and has clearly become a popular project for Netflix. But Deanna Thompson also says some good has come of it, as she and her Don’t Fuck with Cats cohorts have started the Animal Beta Project, which alerts authorities to animal cruelty crimes on the interwebs.
If you haven't caught the mature Netflix series still, it is available streaming now and offers three episodes featuring Internet crime and how it can be difficult to trace criminals posting evidence of their crimes on the Internet. For other upcoming Netflix projects, take a look at our 2020 streaming schedule.
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