Why are we Hooked on Catfishing?

        We have all heard of MTV’s reality TV show Catfish; the show where hosts Nev and Max travel around the country uniting online loves and relationships; the show that gave the word “catfish” a brand new meaning. Long gone are the days when a catfish was just a whiskered fish skimming the bottom of a body of water. A catfish now refers to a human who “assumes a false identity or personality on the Internet, especially on social-networking websites in attempts to deceive, manipulate, or swindle” (Dictionary.com).

        If you’re not from the 21^st century, you’re probably thinking to yourself, “Uhm.. What?!”  Well, social media now allows people to take advantage of others in a whole new way because you never have to meet the person you are talking to, making it that much more appealing to build up an avalanche of lies. Dating websites, Facebook, and Tinder give people an easier route to tap into their selfish motives and create their “dream” identity to deceive others or to entertain their own motives. Thanks to Nev and Max, those catfish are now being caught and forced to disclose their true selves. Catfish has revealed the most common selfish motives of those creating alternate lives within social media.

1.    The catfish is bored out of his or her freakin’ mind. Why they resort to trickery on social media and not, say, knitting? The world may never know. People spend huge amounts of time online, so it could have just seemed like the most reasonable, time-consuming activity for them. These catfish usually don’t mean any serious harm and are not setting out to hurt you, they just need something to fill up their monotonous free time and well, hey; your profile appeared to be fun to mess with. They could be someone you know very well, someone your friend met once, or some old woman sitting around her dusty desktop with her ten cats. Nonetheless, they’re bored, and messaging you is their prime entertainment (“It’s Catfishing Season!”).

2.   The catfish is madly in love with you. Maybe you’re the Kate Upton or David    Beckham of your town, or maybe you just have a kick-ass personality. For whatever reason, these catfish are intimidated by you in real-life and therefore believe that they are not good enough for you. Their lack of confidence then leads them to resort to hiding behind social media sites and pretending they are someone more “in your league.” Websites allow them to be the person that they believe you would absolutely love, giving them to opportunity to finally talk to you, even though it's only "screen to screen." Ultimately,  all they want is for you to give them a shot, and creating that false identity is their way of making that dream come true (“It’s Catfishing Season!”).

      3.   The catfish is just a scary, horrible person. They don’t care. At all. They catfish because they like it. They like fishing out new people online, wrapping them up in “real” emotions, using them for money, and then watching them suffer as they continuously break their hearts, never having to reveal any truth. Social media allows them to continue their cruel crime without ever getting caught. "Online police" are never going to come after them. These are the catfish that will leave you feeling hurt and betrayed. You will feel like the two of you were deeply in love and had a beautiful connection. However, the truth of the matter is it was all just a game for them and their prize was your broken heart, AND you are not their only Internet victim (“It’s Catfishing Season!”).

     4.  The catfish is simply lonely. They want to be the person they have always dreamt of becoming, and social media will never tell them, "no, you are not allowed to be this person." The majority of the time, these catfish are people who have been bullied, have dysfunctional families, or have just struggled throughout their lives in trying to discover who they really are. To escape from their own personal hell called reality, these catfish hide behind their new, beautiful or handsome picture, or "identity," via social media and seek out you, the person who they can share their secrets with and confide in. You are the attention that have needed and wanted for so long. They often truly need help and you feel will for them and what they’re going through, but are just no longer attracted to them after discovering the truth (“It’s Catfishing Season!”).

Every catfish is unique and cannot always be defined by one of these four reasons. Many may often fall into more than one, or possibly have a completely new and surprising motive. Regardless, social media has allowed this occurrence to take place much more often than it used to, solely because people recognize that their lies will never be revealed and they can pretend they are anyone that they want to be. It's much harder to do that in real-life. Nev and Max have made this phenomenon extremely well known and have given people an outlet to discover the secrets of their online loves and relationships. Catfish proves that online dating can definitely be risky because of the increase in fraudulent activity, and that is important to keep an eye out for signs that you may be being catfished. Or, maybe it's best to just avoid talking to people you don't know online. Stick to the real world.

Sources:

"It’s Catfishing Season! How to Tell Lovers from Liars Online, and More."Digital Trends. N.p., 22 Aug. 2013. Web. 18 Sept. 2015.