“Don’t F**k with Cats” Exposes a Peculiar Double Standard of Cyber Justice

It was one of the most upsetting documentaries I’ve ever seen, and not just because of the heinous crimes.

This article contains spoilers.

The spectacle of the grotesque and good old-fashioned shock-value have been the bedrock of true crime documentaries, and as this decade comes to a close Netflix’s limited series Don’t F**k with Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer has all the above in spades. The documentary revolves around the horrific murder of Jun Lin and closely profiles his narcissistic, intelligent, fame-obsessed murderer Luka Magnotta who first gained a low-level of notoriety when he anonymously uploaded videos harming kittens.

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The main storytellers of the series are Deanna “Baudi Moovan” Thompson and “John Green”, two tech-savvy cyber vigilantes who dedicated eighteen months of their lives following every lead that popped up to locate Magnotta and report him to the proper authorities. The title of the series is explained by Thompson, who asserted that even though the Internet is a lawless land where anything goes, there is one rule. Thompson describes it as Rule Zero, that you don’t fuck with cats. And in many ways, this completely makes sense. Cats have always had an important role in…