What is Catfish? (Besides the obvious literal answer of being a type of fish.): Urban Dictionary's most popular answer defines a catfish as: "someone who pretends to be someone they're not using Facebook or other social media to create false identities, particularly to pursue deceptive online romances." I've only seen a couple of episodes of the actual show itself, but from the ones I've seen, people have initially "met" on Facebook, and fell in love. However,when it comes into meeting one another for the first time... turns out that their partner has been using a fake profile and fake pictures and look nothing like who they are supposed to be. So I was just wondering what people's take on it is here? Has anyone has been through something like this before?
I think catfishing is a problem that can happen to anyone, but it can be prevented on certain occasions. The first being, both parties being absolutely honest about themselves, and open. Having regular skype voice AND video chats will not only qualm any uncertainties, but it makes it harder to fake someone they are not. (i.e. Myself pretending to be a 14 year old girl, it wouldn't work out well if I were to skype vid chat lmfao being a 21 year old man.) The second thing is to do your research. It's not always 100% fool proof, but if you have that person on facebook, check their family members, pics, info and see if it lines up. Check birthdays, and to see if these people in their lives actually confirm age etc. (if lying about age is in question.) Also, if someone says they live with their parents and have 2 siblings, and there are pics and conversations between said members, it's harder to fake being someone else from that angle. Cross reference said photos of the person you are interested in with other social sites you may have them on, and of course, if you obviously face chatted before, you'll know if they are the same person. Personality is a different case, and whether or not that person is committed to you, but that is up to that person if they are going to be honest about it. But the same could be easily said about someone who lives in the same city as you. Even with identity in check, be careful of intentions as well. If someone wants to just get in your pants, it will be pretty obvious with the way they treat you or try to sweet talk you that rubs things the wrong way. Asking for money can also be a big issue, trying to scam people out of their hard earned pay could also be another motive for some. But again, these things could happen to you if you were interested in the person down the block. One should always be weary about others, but don't become paranoid. Be smart about your decisions, if you decide to seek TRUUUUUUUUUUEEEEEE LOOOOOOOOVEE via long distances. Never rush into anything, and of course the ultimate goal is to mutually agree to meet up at some point, once you feel comfortable doing so. Life is always a gamble, there are never guarantees, but I know so many people who have found someone who makes them absolutely content and happy and they met online. Trust your heart, but also your head. Don't get into anything without feeling absolutely certain that you are comfortable with that person, and just get to know them along the way can be a fun adventure as well. And in regards to if I've ever been catfished, I have been fooled once or twice, but they were not a serious incident and the people who were involved are still my friends and I care a lot about them. Like I said, you need to take every angle while getting to know someone. But every case is different.
Years and years ago when I was in high school, I met a girl named Jenny on myspace. Jenny lived in Alaska and while we never had any sort of romantic relationship, there was a lot of flirting there. Jenny "introduced" me to her best friend Summer before the two had a falling out irl and cut ties, but I still talked to both of them. One day and I can't remember how I came upon it, but I found a profile with Jenny's picture. I asked the person about it and she revealed Summer was a former best friend who apparently was jealous of her looks and that wasn't the first time that Summer pretended to be her online, hence why they were "former" best friends. I didn't have any real romantic feelings for Summer, but I confronted and forgave her and we stayed in touch for a while longer. An ex of mine also had a friend from a different state who added me and we talked before I started noticing red-flags. Turns out, my ex had a habit of doing the same thing, making up friends that didn't live nearby to make her real friends jealous of more extravagant lifestyles (the one specifically who added me was a "young, lingerie model" lol).
This has actually happened to me quite a few times, albeit a lot more innocent compared to some cases. When I was around 12, I had hundreds of people on msn. I always had people adding me. I also met a lot of people from Habbo (pfffpfpfpf don't judge me) and me being young and naïve, I would always try to get to know them. Girls would usually send me fake pictures of like, older more beautiful women with model looks, all while claiming to be 14 or something. Most of it was easy to see through unless they never actually told me their age. They would usually come clean after a while and send me pictures of what they really looked like or went on cam. I put it down to little girls being insecure about themselves and obviously very immature. Thinking back on it now, it's scary how trusting I was with people through sites like Habbo. There could've been 40 year old men pretending to be young girls so they could talk to me. :/
I think on a community like this it'll be fairly common to find stories of people getting catfished, though perhaps to a lesser extent. My personal experience is similar to Bueno and Coma's in a way, but here goes. I don't want to name names because I don't know how comfortable this person is with having the whole tale out there, but it's not exactly a secret either. A member here was fairly popular, had posted pictures of herself, and was pretty open about her real name. I got to know her quite well and we talked on a pretty regular basis. A few months (maybe a year? I'm genuinely not sure) after we'd gotten close, she came clean that she wasn't really who she claimed to be -- she had basically adopted the identity, photos, etc. of a real life friend of hers for online usage, because she was afraid of getting stalked. I admit it was a bit shocking at the time, since I had gotten used to who I thought she was, but it wasn't a huge difference really -- different name, different appearance, and slightly younger than I thought. Nothing earth shattering. After the initial shock wore off we pretty much just continued as we were, and we're still quite good friends. Something like that of course is far lesser than being actually catfished though, but in an online environment like forums or messenger, it's so easy to adopt a different identity and nobody will be any the wiser. At least, it was a few years ago. With everything being so interconnected these days (it's so easy to find someone all over the internet, on Facebook and Twitter and tumblr and Pinterest and everywhere), I would argue it's harder to catfish someone, though not impossible. You saw it a lot more in Myspace days I think. But basically if you just follow some of the suggestions Llave posted I really think you'll be alright. I've been talking to strangers on the internet for years and my only catfishing story is, as you've read, quite minor. It just comes down to being careful about what you share and making sure you put some effort into verifying someone's identity.
I actually have two Catfish stories... which is probably not so good. I think it was mostly because of my age (These things happened around the time where I was 12ish) I was probably taken advantage of. Spoiler On another Forum I go on, a lot of the members all got Catfished. It was last year so I don't really remember, but we had a really popular member that site Catfish everyone. I had actually been pretty good friends with them, but they were quite depressed and my mom "Didn't want me exposed to that" and we lose contact. But then basically they had starting saying suicidal things in that Forum's chat room which got them banned. A couple of months later they had made an alt account and explained to everyone that they really weren't who they said they were and that they had made up where they lived, who they were, they had even faked an accent. A lot of people were really angry at him, because he was so well liked and I suppose no one really likes to be fooled and admit that they were tricked, but I felt really bad for them. As I see it, people who Catfish are trying to escape something going on in their lives, and pretending to be someone else with a happier life might make them feel better, who can say really. It doesn't justify the Catfishing for everyone, since a lot of people were close friends with this person, and some girls on the site even had dated him. I could see why they were so upset... but at the same time if they were really that close of friends, maybe they could forgive him and understand why he felt he had to lie. Spoiler Kinda in between that ^ I had made a close friend on that same Forum where that popular member had been Catfishing, and I was a tad bit paranoid all things considered. Their story started out as pretty normal, but in time it just got very complicated. After two weeks of me knowing them they had gotten into an accident, and then after that they explained that their memory wasn't the greatest, and that they had gotten multiple head injuries etc... I didn't think very much of it at the time, but I was 12/13 sooo that's probably why. After a while they said they started to hear voices, (And later it did get diagnosed as Schizophrenia), and other things like that, and I started to generally worry about him. and I got very attached. Eventually after story after story after story, I decided to do a bit of research. I asked for a facebook, they said they had one but didn't use it much, and they didn't give it to me. I found that very suspicious but I didn't want to upset him of course, since he was so ill. I dragged the pictures he had given me into google, but I didn't find anything. I also tried looking up his username on google to see what I could find, but it wasn't much. Finally he gave me his facebook so I dug around there as well. I tried to see if anyone had liked the little photos he had on there. By doing that I was able to find some family members that checked out with his story, and some other information that helped me prove he was telling me the truth. Not everyone you met is going to Catfish you, but at the same time, you can't say that it isn't common or it won't happen to you, because it does happen to a lot of people. The best thing you can do is like Llave said, check their identity. It's very easy to take their pictures and run them into a google search to find if they've been stolen. It's also pretty easy to tell looking at their facebook whether they're really legit or not. Look at their friends, family etc. If you're really desperate don't be afraid to message someone you think can confirm that person's identity.
This happened to my best friend. The person starting talking to her on facebook, he called himself "Mike" and his profile picture made him very attractive to her and they started flirting and going down that route but she did start to get suspicious. She really liked this guy though and hoped it was real, several times his facebook name changed from Mike to Linsey which we both found weird and Mike explained it by saying he kept getting hacked by a linsey, we didn't question that. Anyway, she came to me upset one day because she had searched for his profile picture and found it to be a generic photo of some model or something but it was easily found on google images and she confronted him, he then confessed saying he was actually a girl named Linsey who was in love with my friend but didn't think she was a lesbian so pretended to be male. They did go out for a bit until my friend realised the problems it caused her and how terrible it all was on her and her home life. It was horrible to watch and so glad we can look back on it now and laugh. I wish I could have done something more about it but I didn't really think about it at the time. I felt sorry for Linsey as I don't think she was well but I don't know what became of her.
To be fair, online relationships can go one of 2 ways: horribly wrong or fantastic. I myself don't have any particular friends to mention that have close online relations with people, but I could use myself. Within the last 2 months or so, I became acquainted with 3 different guys from the same forum and 2 out of 3 of them happened to be local individuals, whereas the other lives in another province. With the first 2 guys, I met them within a month of talking non-stop and thankfully nothing went horribly wrong; both guys actually ended up having major crushes on me. I think all parties were relatively relieved to realize that both of us were exactly what we appeared online. The other one, albeit quite older and lives 3000km away, I'll be meeting him next weekend and I'm more than certain that he'll be exactly as he is for the 4 months we've been talking. Though not everybody has the same experience as myself so best to be careful about who you meet online and then offline thereafter regardless of the level of trust.
