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I’ll admit that I’ve never actually watched To Catch a Predator, but I am familiar with what I’d consider its 2026 equivalent: police bodycam footage.
They’re littered all over social platforms like TikTok and Youtube Shorts (which is really the cursed version of TikTok) - featuring everything from routine traffic stops to CPS house calls to raids on drug dens. People in these videos are caught at their most vulnerable, most embarrassing state, and then plated up for mass consumption, with their behavior openly critiqued, mocked, and debated on by millions of faceless people.
It’s grossly exploitative, and yet, I can’t stop watching them.
AND THE CROWD GOES WILD … FOR PUBLIC HUMILIATION
As it turns out, we have a strong appetite for watching people fuck up, and an equally strong desire to see them suffer for it. It’s why audiences loved TCAP, and all the other shows that colored the wild wild west landscape that was reality tv in the 2000s. We love watching people get “humbled”, especially when they’re sorted into neat, cookie-cutter categories like “predator” or “not predator,” exactly the way TCAP so neatly laid it out for us.
Primetime forces us to reckon with the harm in doing so, which is exactly the reason why I can’t stop thinking about it. I approached it expecting a vague biography of Chris Hansen, and instead left feeling like I’d been caught myself. In an age where surveillance is part of everyday life, and sold to us as “necessary”, from Ring doorbells to Flock cameras to closely monitored social media feeds, it’s no wonder Primetime feels like an exposé. Because it understands exactly the media landscape we’re living in, and how we got here.
GIRL I’M BORED LET’S USE CRITICAL THINKING
To me, Primetime isn’t a film exclusively about Chris Hansen, nor is it particularly interested in debating whether or not he’s a “bad” person. It isn’t even really about catching predators.
It’s more about capturing a snapshot of America in a post 9/11, Patriot Act world - one that examines why so many people gravitated towards a show that was essentially a modern day witch hunt. And how the desire to see justice served had become so deeply embedded in the cultural consciousness.
MY TAKE - ROBERT PATTINSON YOU ARE VERY SPECIAL TO ME
Patriot Act repercussions aside - I need to know something. How is Robert Pattinson doing this? He’s a weapon.
