

All a potential catfish needs is access to a social media or online dating platform, a fake photo (usually stolen from social media or stock image websites), a fake name and an elaborate backstory to bring their character to life. It’s unfortunately quite easy to catfish someone.
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The man compared these deceiving individuals to real-life catfish as those “who keep you on your toes, keep you thinking, keep you guessing.” The term stuck even further when MTV began producing “Catfish: The TV Show.” How do people pull this off? It’s said that someone found that adding catfish to the vat helped the cod stay lively throughout the journey, improving their quality. During the journey, the cod would become inactive and lose their taste and texture by the time they reached their final destination. That woman’s husband noted the parallels between this relationship of deceit and a metaphor about live cod being transported from Alaska to China. The term “catfishing” caught on after the 2010 documentary “Catfish,” which highlighted the relationship between a New York City man and a supposed 19-year-old woman in the Midwest (who turned out to be a 40-year-old housewife). In fact, you’ve probably come across a version of a catfishing scheme without realizing it-does the Nigerian prince email scam sound familiar? Why is it called catfishing? Imagine pedophiles using fake identities to lure underage children, individuals pretending to be banks or businesses in order to steal your money, or even people pretending to be your distant relatives in order to collect personal data. The motivation behind it varies in each case, but it can be as benign as seeking validation and companionship, or as malicious as attempting to deceive or trick the other person into sending money or other assets.Ĭatfishing isn’t limited to romantic relationships, and the possibilities are endless. What is catfishing on the internet?Ĭatfishing is pretending to be someone you’re not, in an attempt to trick someone into carrying out a relationship. Because of this, being catfished has become so prevalent in today’s culture that it’s been the plotline of movies, talk shows and a common topic of conversation everywhere from Reddit to Facebook.īut what is catfishing? With the prevalence of online dating and networking, it’s important to know the signs of being catfished and exactly what to do should it happen to you. Meeting new love interests online is now more popular than meeting them through friends, at bars and through other more historically conventional methods.
