The appalling spectacle surrounding Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance

A heavy feeling has loomed over the Today show for the past week: Co-anchor Savannah Guthrie has been noticeably absent while dealing with an extremely public nightmare.

On February 1, authorities began searching for Guthrie’s 84-year-old mother, Nancy Guthrie, following what is now believed to be an abduction from her home outside of Tucson, Arizona. As police try to identify a suspect or even a person of interest, the details of the case have become increasingly dark. And the public can’t look away.

The investigation began last Sunday when Nancy Guthrie didn’t show up to church, prompting community members to notify her family. After her family called 911, Arizona law enforcement went to her home, discovered what Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos described as a “crime scene,” and then began search efforts. Authorities have since released a timeline of the night Guthrie disappeared; it says, among other details, that her doorbell camera was disconnected and that her pacemaker app had been disconnected from her phone.

The basic facts of Nancy Guthrie’s case are shocking enough. And its connection to the Today host who brightly delivers news and human interest stories to millions of Americans every morning makes the story even more disorienting.

But it’s the kind of disturbing saga that thrives in our current media landscape. Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance sits at the intersection of two subjects the American public treats as fodder for entertainment: celebrity and tragedy.

In a post-true crime world, news stories like Guthrie’s aren’t just observed or even necessarily sympathized with. Instead, personal tragedies have become a source of interactive media, allowing online spectators to chime in with their theories and do their own sort of nebulous “detective work.” For bloggers and content creators, posing as experts on these trending stories can even be profitable.

A similar phenomenon occurred after the deaths of Hollywood director Rob Reiner and his wife Michelle Reiner, allegedly at the hands of their son, Nick Reiner, last December. Creators spent the following days evaluating Nick Reiner’s body language and soundbites in old interviews. Details about the family’s whereabouts the night of the Reiners’ death, when they attended a star-studded holiday party hosted by comedian Conan O’Brien, became added “tea” to speculate about.

Similarly, the conversation around Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance has already taken on a conspiratorial, gossipy tone. Many TikTok users are eager to post their own “theories” as to who is responsible for the alleged abduction. Meanwhile, videos that Savannah Guthrie and her siblings posted to social media, pleading with their mother’s presumed kidnappers to release her, are being dissected by amateur sleuths and have led to baseless speculation about the family’s involvement in her disappearance.

That TMZ became a part of the story is the final step in the tragedy-to-online-gossip pipeline. On Tuesday, the notorious celebrity news outlet revealed it had received a ransom note demanding millions of dollars in Bitcoin; authorities confirmed a note was sent to other news outlets that agreed not to report on it. Meanwhile, a California man was arrested on Wednesday, accused of pretending to be the suspected abductor; he allegedly contacted the Guthrie family with a fake ransom demand. It turns out there are multiple ways someone can insert themselves in another person’s tragedy when it becomes a public spectacle, adding more chaos to an already awful situation.

It’s been dizzying to watch the public revert to a sort of voyeurism that’s largely associated with the late ’90s and mid-2000s tabloid culture — an era that many of the people who lived through it now rebuke. It’s a time period we like to collectively rebuke from a distance. As social media becomes increasingly parasocial, lawless, and monetizable, people are incentivized to use it this way. A missing 84-year-old woman is no exception.