In this special bonus episode, reporter Rachel Nuwer walks through exactly how “Tiger King” misleads its viewers, and what its massive popularity means for big cats.
The Netflix series 'Tiger King' has become popular watching during the COVID-19 outbreak. (LM Otro / AP Photo)
Netflix’s “Tiger King” series may be the most popular documentary ever made. Sixty-four million people have seen it, and Joe Exotic is now a household name. Unfortunately, the show fails to explain what’s actually happening with captive tigers living in the U.S., leaving out vital information while getting lots of other things wrong.
Over the last few months, Longreads worked with reporter Rachel Nuwer on a podcast, “Cat People,” to expose the legal loopholes governing big-cat ownership in this country. We just published a special bonus episode with Nuwer, walking through exactly how “Tiger King” misleads its viewers, and what the show’s massive popularity means for big cats.
Episode 5: What ‘Tiger King’ Gets Wrong About Tigers
The “Cat People” podcast series is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.