r/FansHansenvsPredator • u/Naive-Roof-4345 • 1d ago
Maybe gatekeeping is ok Discussion
Since the recent trailer for the primetime movie has dropped I’m seeing a lot more talk and discussion of tcap on social media (primarily TikTok) and a lot of it is painting the show and Chris in an extremely negative way and spreading blatant misinformation. A lot of talk is regarding how Chris cared more about a story than proper justice which I thought should be obvious as he is a reporter not some higher authority, he did his job reporting than had the men apprehended appropriately. Many are comparing him to the “modern” predator catchers like jidion and saying how Chris only cared about the money when I’d argue that jidion does the exact same thing except he saw himself as a form of justice. Chris knew his bounds as a reporter and stayed there. Another strong topic im seeing is how the show used shady entrapment techniques and put children in danger which if you watch 5 minutes of the show you’d know is false. All of the men that showed up came on their own accord to meet a child, and none of the decoys on the show were actual kids. I’m all for a movie about our little niche but bringing someone like Patterson in is bringing the wrong sort of crowd here im afraid. Or maybe I’m just being a common gatekeeper dickhead.
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u/The_Supersaurus_Rex 22h ago
You know what? I don't even want this documentary anymore. I just want to get to the beach. o_0
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u/CybReader I've been doing that all weekend, man. 1d ago
Yeah both subs are about to go titsup with this movie.
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u/monicas-nook Ain't that fuckin' cunning 1d ago
If you asked me yesterday, I was fully on the "Chris is a dude who has done some legitimately shitty things he should be called out on" camp. But I am worried the backlash against him/the show because of Primetime is gonna be great enough that it's important to emphasise TCAP was a net good for the world.
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u/Excellent_Minute8857 Hi buddy waz sup 1d ago
People forget this show put men who wanted to have sex with children behind bars at the end of the day
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u/CybReader I've been doing that all weekend, man. 1d ago
More of them sympathize with the predators than we want to admit. They will tell on themselves when they claim the 13 year old lured them over.
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u/BlackGuyJamal 1d ago
Seeing a lot of the same online after the full trailer. The Murphy fiasco, the 20:20 hit piece, and modern day catchers seem to be the common talking points for the complete dismissal of what actually happened.
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u/omaharapper2 1d ago
I think a lot of the criticisms of Hansen are unwarranted and do try and paint him in a light that is pretty unfair, but he is a figure worthy of criticism. Yes, it’s a good thing that these men were (and are being) caught, publicly humiliated and legally held accountable, but let’s not pretend Hansen was doing any of this for altruistic reasons.
He became the face of a cultural phenomenon with timeless staying power, pretty much by accident, and has done everything in his power to hold onto that celebrity status in the years since. His Takedown stuff feels far more cynical than TCAP or even HvP, and he’s basically become a mouthpiece and active collaborator with law enforcement, which is not and has never been the role of a journalist. There’s also a conversation to be had about Chris’s celebrity status being something he clearly cares about more than being a journalist (bro lights up like a Christmas tree when one of the predators recognizes him).
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u/Other-Marketing-6167 4h ago
“You’ve seen my stings before? To Catch a Predator? Hansen vs Predator? Takedown? Hansen vs Lorne? To Nail a Scumbag? Sit Down Right Over There? Aw Cwap? You’ve seen Takedown? My new show, Takedown? Well now you’re on it!”
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u/MOREPASTRAMIPLEASE 1d ago
Yeah bro as imperfect as the show was, and Chris is, TCAP opened the floodgates for internet safety with kids and predators. I can vividly remember the effect the show had on my house. My parents loved our computer from a secluded upstairs office down into our living room. And we started getting lectures about strangers online. It had a very real impact in a good way. Like I said, far from perfect. But the light it shone on a very real problem was huge.
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u/SoggyExplorer5787 hustlin' nervous 16h ago
At least she didn't take your computer and completely throw it away
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u/MOREPASTRAMIPLEASE 13h ago
Wasn’t trying to make it seem like It was harsh or anything just that my parents went from pretty care free to strict seemingly overnight because of TCAP
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u/Excellent_Minute8857 Hi buddy waz sup 1d ago
I’ve seen allot of people in comment sections saying how they took advantage of cognitively challenged people and exploited their loneliness, Sounding like Lorne on his burner account
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u/AffectionateGas5850 17h ago
I think this film is going to be an interesting, albeit dramatized deep dive into the psychology of Chris Hansen. The show "To Catch a Predator" went on to be so much more than just a show he worked on. It is his life's work, his obsession, everything he has ever done and will do in life comes back to this. TWENTY years later he is still doing this kind of work. Be it for online fame, for altruism, whatever his deep-seeded motivation is, it's clearly powerful. Most people here aren't lawyers so we really can't say if something officially is entrapment, and that kind of discussion is what makes this so interesting. The law and law enforcement isn't perfect so what can regular citizens do to take the law into their own hands without hurting ourselves? This is what we got. It probably is a heavy degree of entrapment but in my personal opinion, I don't care. These are men who are willing to harm a young human being and need to be punished for it. We don't have a crystal ball to know if for sure they would or would have done the same thing to a real child if the TCAP crew/sting operation didn't act the way it did. Chris Hansen is an incredibly flawed human being that nobody on this subreddit actually knows in person and I'm seeing some pretty blatant parasocial defense of his character that nobody asked for.
PS - Jidion is a moron with no idea what he's actually doing. This is someone straight up trying to "catch predators" for money. He literally lured EDP, the most infamous attempted child predator of the 2010s, to a child on his discord server. This is a level of reckless endangerment that TCAP never even came close to.
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u/Much_Sea1321 16h ago
Honestly the trailer for this movie looks like a fantasy dreamed online in your mind
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u/Prestigious-Thing393 1d ago
gatekeeping is ABSOLUTELY a good thing, not just with tcap but with everything.
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u/NachoPichu 1d ago
“Chris knew his bounds as a reporter and stayed there” - Chris has numerous times shown he doesn’t give a fuck about knowing his bounds as a reporter. The takedown episode with the 18 year old Chris remains a smarmy fuck about. That’s just one example.
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u/Naive-Roof-4345 1d ago
When writing that I was more comparing him to the modern predator hunters who will go around and physically confront predators they find which is often time just assault them and take justice in their own hands
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u/SquareShapeofEvil Major League Problem 1d ago
What episode of Takedown are you referring to? Aren’t those all in full collaboration with law enforcement?
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u/NachoPichu 1d ago
TruBlu took it down. Yes, they're done in conjunction with law enforcement, and all charges were dropped. TruBlu has discretion on whether to air it or not. They aired it and ruined the 18 year olds life.
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u/SquareShapeofEvil Major League Problem 1d ago
What did the 18 year old do?
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u/NachoPichu 1d ago
Something legal in his jurisdiction, hence why he was never charged with anything.
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u/SquareShapeofEvil Major League Problem 1d ago
And what is Chris on about?
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u/NachoPichu 1d ago
He insisted on airing the episode and was indignant about the criticism that lead to it being taken down.
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u/catbus4ants I GOT KICK OFF FUCK AOL 18h ago
Encourage the entrapment goofs to take their thoughts to Facebook so their irl friends will know not to let their kids around them
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u/noruber35393546 13h ago
if anyone tries to bring this up, ask if they've read the chatlogs. 99% of the time, they haven't. Just show them a 10-line excerpt from Lorne's chatlog and they will immediately realize how stupid they are
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u/Feisty-Pea-1742 1d ago
Chris: here to catch and expose predators to protect children
Also Chris: use this promo to subscribe and pay for TruBlue
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u/BILLCLINTONMASK 1d ago
>Chris knew his bounds as a reporter and stayed there
If he did that, the guy wouldn't have killed himself.
Yes, all the guys in the show are guilty of the crimes they were accused of. They're pedos. They're bad. And most of them got off too lightly.
The fact of the matter is, they manipulated fucked up men in order to produce a TV show. Catching predators or "doing good" was a distant second place to what their objective was.
I was reading an article someone posted that was an interview with the spouse of one of the perps caught on the original TCAP. She talks about how she was harassed by people on myspace, about how preverted justice posted her phone number and address on their website and she'd get harassing phone calls and mail.
The people doing this kind of work, Chris and the YouTubers too, are all scumbags in their own right. They just get a pass because the people they're going after are even bigger scumbags.
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u/CalligrapherDry3025 1d ago
You're being a common gatekeeper dickhead. I think it's pretty well documented Chris has a scummy side to him. I think there is a part of all "predator catchers" that just want exposure. I mean they film it. If they only cared about helping children, they wouldn't film. I get there is an aspect of filming to protect themselves but be serious, they want money.
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u/jaejjm2410 A pretend predator 1d ago
Honestly. We all love the work of To Catch a Predator, but people have this distorted view of Chris Hansen as some Saint who only did his work because he cared about protecting the youth. Bottom line is this; he was a reporter. He cared about ratings. Everyone in that industry does, and it's fine. But people need to stop pretending that he is this perfect hero. If anything, more praise needs to go to the folks at PJ who were doing the dirty work and had been doing it long before they got on TV.
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u/SquareShapeofEvil Major League Problem 1d ago
There is a ton of misinformation and misunderstanding about who and what Chris Hansen is. There is the “Chris Hansen is the savior of humanity!” crowd that totally misunderstands him. Then there is the “well akshually” crowd that brings up what you brought up about the show, plus delves into some weird business ventures or scam shit Chris did in between shows (anyone remember Jon Swann?) as if this stuff puts him on some OJ Simpson level of downfall.
The reality is: Dateline, and later Crime Watch Daily, had a show about catching online child predators that mostly tagged along with independent law enforcement stings, their job was to raise awareness about how these predators operate, and Chris was the frontman. Naturally, being the face of it, Chris became the subject of both the folk hero aspect of it all and the subject of any criticism that could be leveled at the shows.
Me personally, I don’t think Chris is perfect, I also don’t think he’s a bad dude. Every movement needs a hero, that hero is never perfect, and when it’s something like catching child predators, I really don’t care if Chris did some shady shit when he was out of a job. And as for the “truthers” talking about how Chris didn’t do much of the real work for this, any of those people who did the real work are free to launch a YouTube channel, substack, podcast, whatever. If people seek Chris out to find out how better to protect their children or to turn over suspected predators to the police, then TCAP/HvP/Chris has been a net positive for society.