Anybody else watch that show Catfish?

[DZoolander]

Found this show on Hulu a few days ago...and gotta admit I'm fascinated.

 

[Kindled]

I watched it. Very interesting film.

 

[mkgal1]

Yes! Our family is hooked on that show (are you talking about the original dovumentary....or the series?). It amazes me how-after all this time- people can delude themselves into believing a fantasy. The "Katy Perry" episode may have been the most delusional guy ever on the show (if he truly believes what he said he did).

ETA: That was season 5; episode 15.

 

[DZoolander]

Yeah - the Katy Perry episode was the best one so far. lol

 

[DZoolander]

I haven't seen the movie yet - just the series.

 

[Albion]

Yes, Catfish is interesting, even engrossing. BUT after a few episodes, you know pretty surely what the end result will be, and so you feel sorry for the one who has been deceived more than amused by it all or wondering if the other person could possibly be for real.

That's how it affected me, anyway.

 

[mkgal1]

BUT after a few episodes, you know pretty surely what the end result will be, and so you feel sorry for the one who has been deceived

Really? You must be a lot better than I am at guessing ahead of time who was Catfished and who wasn't.

A few of the recent episodes I thought for SURE they were Catfished and it turned out the person was exactly as they presented them self to be (they were just shy about meeting in person.....or even video chatting. But they had no reason to be shy...in my opinion).

 

[Albion]

I only have watched intermittently and have never seen an episode in which the "other" turned out to be for real--not just not a trickster, but actually as he or she had represented themselves. I'm happy to learn from you that it does happen!

 

[DZoolander]

Did you see the one with that mid 40's creepy guy in Texas that bought an engagement ring for the 21 year old girl?

 

[DZoolander]

I only have watched intermittently and have never seen an episode in which the "other" turned out to be for real--not just not a trickster, but actually as he or she had represented themselves. I'm happy to learn from you that it does happen!

Yeah, there have been a couple of episodes like that.

The majority of the time though it's as you describe. There's a reason why they've been unwilling to meet.

 

[mkgal1]

I'm pretty certain we've seen every episode. We're embarrassingly loyal viewers... I just can't recall all the story lines of the episodes. I DO recall one episode where the gal bought herself an engagement ring and was telling everyone her online boyfriend proposed to her!

If I recall correctly, there aren't as many old creepy guys pretending to young and attractive and preying on the young gals as I'd expect. The show seems to highlight a lot of middle-aged women doing the catfishing (and upset friends! Even BEST-friends!).

 

[Kindled]

I haven't watched the series before. Guess I'll have to check it out.

 

[Tropical Wilds]

I love that show and find it really interesting, especially since (as a teen) I guess I could have been considered an unintentional catfish. The internet was newish and on WBS chat (man am I old) I would occasionally run into other people from my area just by accident in the chats. While the chats were decidedly G rated (almost always X-Files related) and I never lied about who I was, people would ask to meet and I’d agree, but then chicken out. I wasn’t ashamed or anything, it’s that my self-preservation instinct would kick in... 17, 18 years old and meeting a stranger online seemed exciting when you made the plans but terrifying when it came time to do.

There’s one guy I remember vividly... His screen name was NeilNH81. We were crazy good friends online, chatted daily, exchanged pictures, etc for like 6 months to a year, maybe more. Again, entirely G rated discussions. By his description, he lived about 45 minutes away, was the quarterback of the school football team in a crazy wealthy area, got into Yale (maybe it was Princeton), lead singer in his church choir that his dad preaches at, and this guy’s picture was gorgeous. But he only ever sent that one picture. I figured since we met in an X-Files chat room filled with older guys who were decidedly nerdy, he was blowing smoke and was using fake info, but I didn’t care. He was a nice guy.

One email he dropped that he and his GF broke up and he wanted me to go to his prom with him, but first he wanted to meet me at the mall where he worked so we could spend time to face-to-face to know “the real us.” I interpreted this to mean that he wanted to share he wasn’t who he said he was, which I had assumed anyway. I said I appreciated the offer but I’d rather not. I didn’t care about the images of the real world us that had been shared, just the friendship. He said “sounds good, no offense taken” and our friendship continued. My 17/18 year old thinking was if he was more comfortable being this fake person with the fake background to get to know me, so be it. I didn’t want to take that away from him. The friendship we had didn’t depend on our real life images. I figured I was doing him a favor by letting him be the all star hottie of the rich town.

Well, time passed and he was going to Europe for some something or other before starting college and wouldn’t be back before going to college. I didn’t believe it, but whatever. Then one day I found myself at the mall where he worked just before he was supposed to leave and I figured, you know what? I’m going to go in to his store and see if he’s there. My genius plan was to strike up a conversation with the clerk about X-Files then namedrop the chat room and we’d have a laugh.

I walked in the store, there was a female clerk being loudly flirty along with a customer towards a clerk and another guy I couldn’t see, and two other female clerks in the area. I figured oh well and putted around, then the make clerk I couldn’t see came up and asked if I needed help. There I came face to face with NeilNH81, the exact guy from the picture, with his Record Town vest completely jam packed with X-Files pins, and a lanyard from his high school football team with his keys and a letterman’s letter on it. And he was that type of attractive that was almost supernatural. Like, he was too gorgeous to even be real. You would never believe there was a person that gorgeous in the world unless you’d seen them in person. I was completely stunned. I couldn’t speak.

Then I did what any mature 17/18 year old girl would do when confronted with a gorgeous guy who was a close friend, who she liked and who he liked back.

I ran out of the store like somebody had lit my hair on fire and never went back to the store or emailed him ever again.

I simply could not wrap my brain around how a guy like him would be friends with a nerdy, non-supernaturally attractive pasty-skinned freckle faced size 6 (ie “overweight”) bottle redhead like me and thought it was a cruel joke of the universe. I was waaaaay too insecure for that guy who was clearly going off to do genius, beautiful people things.

He emailed me one-sided emails for like another 1-2 YEARS with pictures and asking how I was and updates about him (apparently he only sent the one picture before because at the time he didn’t have a digital camera and had to scan in paper photos, which he didn’t know how to do... He got a digital camera for Europe, which he did go to, and sent tons of pics then). Never answered.

I did try to reply back eventually, years and years later, but the email address was dead. I’m sure he did something amazing like invent Instagram and now he’s living in a mansion by the ocean with a model, surrounded by other intensely beautiful people:

Hindsight being 20/20, I now realize he wanted to meet to not drop the bomb he wasn’t who he said he was, but to make sure I wasn’t the one who was lying about who I was. That didn’t even occur to stupid me at the time. I’m sure if you were to ask him then and now, he would have said I was catfishing him when the reality was I was just a neurotic, insecure 17 year old who was clueless about anything beyond X-Files.

 

[DZoolander]

lol - great story!

I've been online since around 1982 or so. When I started Jr. High, my mom had the revelation that "computers are the future" and told me she wanted to buy one. I lobbied for the Apple ][+ - because I wanted to play Castle Wolfenstein and Choplifter - but she thought it was a toy and instead invested in this big business computer...along with a modem.

The modem was like 300 baud...an acoustic coupler (manually dial the phone - wait for the carrier - then place the headset into the device)...so slow that I think i typed faster than it transmitted data.

I figured I'd do the Wargames thing and learn how to hack into the school's computer so I'd get straight A's and be on easy street...but the reality/impracticality of that quickly hit me...so I learned about bulletin boards instead.

By the time I was 16-17 - I had found a couple of local social boards - and was old enough to drive. I made a few friends/etc...but MOST people were pretty honest about themselves. I figure mostly because it was all local - maybe there was a different dynamic about the feasibility of lying than there is now where you talk to people from around the world.

But I do remember one time some girl was talking to me...and she described herself like a total babe. I figured "what the heck, I'll go meet her" and we set a time to go meet at the mall. I described what I'd be wearing and what I looked like.

I remember her coming up to me looking absolutely nothing like she had described herself, and asking "Are you...(my name)?"

"Nope. You've got the wrong guy."

and I left. lol

 

[mkgal1]

you're an excellent story-teller, Tropical! What an experience...LOL.

Hahaha.....and Zoo...that's hysterical. "Nope. You've got the wrong guy".

 

[Tropical Wilds]

Truthfully I feel so bad when I think about it, I really regret not at least talking to him. I’d like to think he knew it was me in Record Town acting like a total nut job so that’s why he kept emailing for such a long time... But in all reality he didn’t and it bums me out I ghosted a genuinely nice guy.

From my perspective, I thought he’d look at me as I was and think I was a dog. Like, something must have happened to the pictures I sent him where they got scrambled on the Internet and can out looking like I was a hottie on his end. Guys that supernaturally hot don’t look at girls like me and say “she’s pretty.” He did and it freaked me out. I don’t think I’m ugly. I find myself to be wonderfully average in all ways. But I was solid B crowd of a small rural school where the popular guys were my friends and had been forever because I was “one of the boys” and the guys I dated were similar B crowd cute boys who braved the threats from the popular boys of “she’s like my sister so if you hurt her, I’ll come for you.” I wore loose polo shirts and Champion sweatshirts and too much hairspray and black eyeshadow.

This guy was beautiful and blonde and smelled expensive and was wearing black $200 Nike’s and a Ralph Lauren button down (to work at Record Town TYVM) and he was super nice and he liked X-Files I totally panicked. You have to know how cool he was if he is wearing a Record Town vest that is clinking and clacking from all the X-Files buttons when he walked and he still looked like a model. LoL!

And I’m seriously not joking or exaggerating here. Imagine the most gorgeous celebrity you know, slap a Record Town vest with 20 pounds of x-files buttons on him, and that was Neil. I only seen supernaturally gorgeous people three times in my life, and he was one. All three times I acted like a moron.

Either way, I hope he’s happy on his private island with his model and 15 impossibly beautiful kids.

 

[Tropical Wilds]

lol - great story!

I've been online since around 1982 or so. When I stared Jr. High, my mom had the revelation that "computers are the future" and told me she wanted to buy one. I lobbied for the Apple ][+ - because I wanted to play Castle Wolfenstein and Choplifter - but she thought it was a toy and instead invested in this big business computer...along with a modem.

The modem was like 300 baud...an acoustic coupler (manually dial the phone - wait for the carrier - then place the headset into the device)...so slow that I think i typed faster than it transmitted data.

I figured I'd do the Wargames thing and learn how to hack into the school's computer so I'd get straight A's and be on easy street...but the reality/impracticality of that quickly hit me...so I learned about bulletin boards instead.

By the time I was 16-17 - I had found a couple of local social boards - and was old enough to drive. I made a few friends/etc...but MOST people were pretty honest about themselves. I figure mostly because it was all local - maybe there was a different dynamic about the feasibility of lying than there is now where you talk to people from around the world.

But I do remember one time some girl was talking to me...and she described herself like a total babe. I figured "what the heck, I'll go meet her" and we set a time to go meet at the mall. I described what I'd be wearing and what I looked like.

I remember her coming up to me looking absolutely nothing like she had described herself, and asking "Are you...(my name)?"

"Nope. You've got the wrong guy."

and I left. lol

I think every guy has that story. Ben has one but he got out of it by saying he was gay.

 

[DZoolander]

It became a little weird later - because one of those BBSes had a party a few months later that I went to. She came to it also...and she just looked at me from across the room...I looked at her... and neither of us said a word to the other. lol

 

[faroukfarouk]

I haven't watched the series before. Guess I'll have to check it out.

So did you check it out yet?

 

[DZoolander]

I watched the movie the other day. Fascinating the lengths that people go to in order to create these illusions.