CATFISHING: Is That Really You In The Pictures….?
By Morgan Bentham
Catfishing, or portraying yourself online as someone else, is sweeping the internet and social media. With technology use on the rise, people have the world at their fingertips. What people choose to do with this is sometimes frightening. Catfishing is deceptive and hurtful because in most cases these people involve themselves in romantic relationships.
As the Washington Post states, “This phenomenon known as catfishing is a uniquely modern one: a single lie, enabled by the cloak of technology, that stretches, morphs and multiplies until whole personas are
fabricated, emotions are manipulated and hearts are broken” (McCarthy).
According to Krystal D’Costa, an author for Scientific American, “59% of Internet users feel that online dating is a good way to meet people (compared with 44% in 2005)” (D’Costa). That puts 59% of internet users at risk of being catfished. These accounts must be deleted, and the criminals must be stopped.
In today’s society so many teens and young adults are searching for meaning in relationships. But as evidenced by the constant uploading of selfies online, people feel the need to always look the best for their social media accounts. People want to find love and happiness but feel too self-conscious to be themselves online. They create profiles of themselves portraying the people they want to be, but later when the truth comes out, there are many hurt feelings.
The problem is, oftentimes the photos people post are photoshopped to make the person look “prettier” or “more handsome”. Because these photos are edited, people are longing to look like a person who is not showing their true self. People go as far to use the photos of someone else they find online. They steal a completely separate identity and set it up as theirs.
MTV’s “Catfish” is a show revealing cases of catfishing. The hosts, Yanev “Nev” Shulman and Max Joseph, “document the stories of people who have been in online relationships for lengthy periods of time without meeting the other person” (D’Costa). The hosts then help the victims find out who they are really involved with.
The outcome of the show can be shocking, and some cases end sadly. This show is raising awareness about these fake accounts and helping to shut them down. This show was created after Nev Shulman himself was catfished and made a movie about it. After the success of the movie, the show was created in hopes of raising awareness of this disgraceful act that people are committing on the internet, which it is now doing.
Catfishers can be male or female though they tend to be primarily male. They can be all ages and from all walks of life (Cassada). They live across all areas of the world and seem to be from all sorts of social-economic backgrounds. They are masters at manipulating the internet and using it for personal gain instead of for useful, helpful purposes.
The purpose of the internet is not to deceive people and manipulate them into falling for something that isn’t real. It is to broaden our horizons and even to make the world seem smaller by connecting us all. Catfishing doesn’t connect anyone. It creates victims of not only the person who thinks they are talking to someone who they are not, but also the person whose pictures are being used to hurt someone. It also creates suspicion in them that will affect them even in their future relationships.
This problem is such a large problem in our society that police departments are creating task forces to target it. Sometimes in attempts to catch the criminals, “Police will create a false online persona to lure out potential suspects. Just earlier this year, police in Florida baited and caught over 50 men just by going catfishing” (Cassada).
In addition to relationship predators, catfishing is used to lure girls into the sex trafficking trade as well as to kidnap both boys and girls. This unprecedented misuse of a public platform is unacceptable.
Boys and girls beginning in elementary school need to be taught internet safety and the proper use of personal information online. Parents have the responsibility of protecting their children everywhere, including online. It is the parents’ responsibilities first and foremost to create in their children a healthy respect for the vastness of the internet, and also to warn them of the potential pitfalls.
People of all ages and genders need not to feel embarrassed for who they really are, but to embrace it! To not be ashamed and to not hide behind a false identity. Let’s raise awareness that we are all special and can all be ourselves! Let us all use the internet in a truthful way and not intentionally hurt people.
Bibliography
Cassada, Raychelle. “The Two-Sided Face of Teen Catfishing.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 23 July 2018, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/teen-angst/201304/the-two-sided-face-teen-catfishing.
D’Costa, Krystal. Catfishing: The Truth About Deception Online. 25 Apr. 2014, blogs.scientificamerican.com/anthropology-in-practice/catfishing-the-truth-about-deception-online/. Accessed 22 July 2018.
McCarthy, Ellen. “What Is Catfishing? A Brief (and Sordid) History.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 9 Jan. 2016, www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2016/01/09/what-is-catfishing-a-brief-and-sordid-history/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.aa47191c4a0f.
https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=AwrJ6ysN02RbiTMAVTBXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTB0N2Noc21lBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNwaXZz?p=catfishing+the+internet&fr2=piv-web&fr=mcafee#id=11&iurl=https%3A%2F%2Fs-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com%2F564x%2F7d%2F97%2Ff6%2F7d97f65854ba6e03a94f0d70fc3ebfa3.jpg&action=click
