Hacker Cinema
Catfish
2010 · Film · documentary · 87 min
Directed by Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman
Nev, a 24-year-old New York-based photographer, has no idea what he's in for when Abby, an eight-year-old girl from rural Michigan, contacts him on Facebook, seeking permission to paint one of his photographs. When he receives her remarkable painting, Nev begins a friendship and correspondence with Abby's family. But things really get interesting when he develops a cyber-romance with Abby's attractive older sister, Megan, a musician and model. Prompted by some startling revelations about Megan, Nev and his buddies embark on a road trip in search of the truth.
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22 comments on Hacker News
I recently saw the documentary Catfish, and was struck by the similarities to the Cyrano play. It's interesting how Cyrano gets the audience's sympathy even though he is a blatant manipulator. In Catfish, the woman with the corresponding role gets painted as borderline psychotic, which may be warranted. There are other differences as well, but it's interesting how big a difference the gender swap makes.
Am I the only one who was really distracted by the use of the term Catfish in every other sentence?
I've heard the term and I know there was a film called Catfish a few years about someone who created a fake identity online but I didn't realize it was such a common term.
How is a catfish different from a fraud?
You should be aware that this is a very questionable documentary and the makers of the documentary who are now the presenters of the TV show have been credibly accused of faking footage and exploiting the subject.
> Some journalists and film critics have cast doubt on the filmmakers motivations. Kyle Buchanan of MovieLine questions why the filmmakers would begin obsessively documenting Nev's online relationship so early on, and argues that it is highly improbable that media-savvy professionals like the Schulmans and Joost would not use the Internet to research Megan and her family before meeting them. Buchanan and others have suggested that the filmmakers likely discovered the fabrications in Wesselman-Pierce's story earlier than is presented in the film and pretended to be fooled only so that they could exploit her story for the documentary. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catfish_(film)#Authenticity
The 2010 documentary catfish, and subsequent mtv series, offers an interesting look behind the curtain at the type of people who create fake facebook profiles. It covers a wide variety of reasons for creating them spanning from people who suffer from low self-esteem and confidence issues to not being able to reveal that they are homo-sexual out of fear of their friends and family finding out, just out of pure malice or even in one case creating a fake account story to get the show to pay for flights so they could finally meet face to face. Its crazy some of the lengths people go to keep up the charade and how much evidence certain people will ignore to keep the idea that the person is real alive.
Note that the "Catfish" urban legend originally meant something else. In the movie the catfish term is introduced like this: "They used to tank cod from Alaska all the way to China. They'd keep them in vats in the ship. By the time the codfish reached China, the flesh was mush and tasteless. So this guy came up with the idea that if you put these cods in these big vats, put some catfish in with them and the catfish will keep the cod agile. And there are those people who are catfish in life. And they keep you on your toes. They keep you guessing, they keep you thinking, they keep you fresh. And I thank god for the catfish because we would be droll, boring and dull if we didn't have somebody nipping at our fin."
So it's indeed a bottom grundler, but with an important impact on the fish in the sunlight. Without the catfish the sunny fish would all die. The catfish keeps them agile.
I never caught the TV show but the film was fun if not a little hard to buy because it was so over the top. I think probably the success of the show can be helped mostly on the high profile catfish of star college football player Mante Te'o. A very large audience had been first enthralled by the idea of his cancer stricken girlfriend that he was playing for. But then that same audience learned both the phrase "catfish" and the hard truth that he had been duped because that girlfriend didn't exist.[0] It was national news for awhile and broke thanks to research from Deadspin. How ABC and other outlets (ESPN,CBS,Sports Illustrated,NYPOST) didn't look up if the girl had existed before they spoke about it still blows me away.
[0] http://deadspin.com/manti-teos-dead-girlfriend-the-most-heartbreaking-an-5976517
I can only speak for the people portrayed on Catfish: The TV Show
They all have various somewhat complicated reasons for "catfishing." These are people who 1)agree to meet/give up their true selves 2)agree to appear on TV
Some people do it for revenge.
Some do it for escape.
Some do it because they have self esteem and body issues and don't mean any harm to the person they catfish.
One guy admitted doing it to "brush up on his game" or something of that nature.
One person was catfished by her best friend who set up the fake profile to help get her out of a serious depression after (if I remember) a death of someone close. The friend even went so far as to have her male cousin be the voice.
Some people do it because they know the person in real life, have secret feelings for them but won't admit it to them, so they create a fake profile to catfish the person and act out their fantasies that way.
It is an interesting look into human nature if nothing else. Some mean harm, but many do not. It is a common theme in the body image catfishers to say "Everything I told you is true, my feelings are real, I just look different."
Of course - some will also do it for money!
I had to look this term up too. It apparently is related to a 2010 movie 'Catfish'... as described elsewhere here.
And the ensuing TV show: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catfish:_The_TV_Show
I believe it was coined by this movie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catfish_%28film%29
Exactly. A good portion of people appearing in episodes of the MTV show Catfish do not have non-phone computers, and carry on their fake relationships via Facebook, Twitter, SMS, and sometimes voice calls. It often takes only seconds for the two guys running the docu-drama reality show to determine that the victim of the week is being conned, and image search and reverse phone number lookups are always the first two things they do.
It would have to be something that social media companies or telecoms would do, on the same order of difficulty as poking a button on your iPhone app, or dialing a phone service code like *57.
For everybody who doesn't know where that catfish use comes from (I didn't):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catfish_(film)
Probably itself a "fake documentary": "why the filmmakers would begin obsessively documenting Nev's online relationship so early on."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catfish_(film)
It originates from a movie, and is also now a TV show.
I have to wonder whether there is an easy technical countermeasure to catfishing, or whether human psychology will always be the insurmountable hurdle here.
It seems like it would be easy to verify that a given message is from a particular internet pseudonym, or to construct a challenge that would be easy for a real person to respond to, but difficult for a catfish. We've had proof of life from kidnappers seeking ransoms before the Internet even existed, after all.
If you ever watched the Catfish movie or the MTV show, you'll notice that the common element is that the victims all have an overwhelming desire for their relationship to be non-fraudulent, to the point where they actively ignore any and all warning signs. Is there something that people with low technical ability can do to verify online counterparties that cannot be affected by their desire for the results to come out in a particular way?
For anyone who enjoyed this and might like to look at similarly themed pieces (impact of social media / internet communication on relationships) - the following might be of interest:
* Catfish [movie, USA] - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1584016/
* Black Mirror [series, UK] - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2085059/
Both a little on the bleak/dark side, forewarning!
The ultimate story is of the Anandtech forums, where someone invented a woman, sockpuppeted her on the forums, romanced her on the forums, got married, had a child (or she already had one?) and then killed them both off in a road traffic accident.
(http://web.archive.org/web/20010624115154/http://forums.anandtech.com/arcmessageview.cfm?catid=38&threadid=102468)
(http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=275172)
(http://oro.open.ac.uk/647/)
Fakery on the Internet is fascinating and very very common. People fake having cancer; people fake their own situation; people fake their friends. The movie Catfish is a nice exploration of one person's fakery. (It would have been easy to say "OMG SHE'S MENTAL LOL" but it's a surprisingly gentle confrontation and you end up somewhat sympathetic to her.)
Here are some other notable fakes:
SEXTORTION AT EISENHOWER HIGH
(http://www.gq.com/news-politics/big-issues/200907/wisconsin-high-school-sex-scandal-online-facebook?printable=true¤tPage=all)
> Last year, an awkward high school senior in Wisconsin went online, passed himself off as a flirtatious female student, and conned dozens of his male classmates into e-mailing him sexually explicit images of themselves. What he did next will likely send him to jail for a very long time
DAVE ON WHEELS
(http://betabeat.com/2012/10/meet-hunter-dunn-the-young-man-whose-identity-was-stolen-for-the-dave-on-wheels-hoax/)
> Followers of “Dave” on sites like Twitter and The Chive thought they were reading posts from a deaf young man suffering from cerebral palsy who had worked tirelessly to overcome his obstacles, all the while maintaining a positive outlook and relatably wry sense of humor.
KAYCEE NICOLE / DEBBIE SWENSON
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2001/may/28/internetnews.mondaymediasection)
> For two years, a young American girl recounted her brave struggle against leukaemia in a daily online diary. This month she died. Thousands of web-users sent condolences. But [...]
(http://web.archive.org/web/20050115092141/http://www.rootnode.org/article.php?sid=26)
(http://www.metafilter.com/7878/The-Kaycee-Nicole-Swensen-Faq)
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaycee_Nicole_Swenson)
THE LYING DISEASE - in which a cancer patient is befriended by another cancer patient, who is faking cancer. (Happens three times.)
(http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/the-lying-disease/Content?oid=15337239)
WARRIOR ELI - a ten year hoax
(http://gawker.com/5914621/the-long-fake-life-of-js-dirr-a-decade%20long-internet-cancer-hoax-unravels)
Sorry this is such a long list, but I watch a lot of films.
"Martha Marcy May Marlene" - a gentle exploration of someone broken after living with a cult
"Never Let Me Go" - A film you can push a lot of meaning into if you want to. I love the acting of Carey Mulligan
"Shame" - Michael Fassbender is amazing in this, as is Carey Mulligan
"Catfish" - an amazing documentary about people who lie on the Internet, but a gentle and kind version, not the obvious "OMG THESE PEOPLE ARE NUTTERS".
"End of Watch" - 'found footage' style police thing. I really liked it for not forcing a traditional plot and pacing on the audience.
"Margin Call" - financial collapse and amorality. Not many films show business in any kind of sensible way. While this movie probably doesn't it avoids most of the cliches other films make.
"Beasts of the Southern Wild" - I'm disappointed this missed out on awards.
"Take This Waltz" - Seth Rogan playing straight might be scary, but he's pretty good as the husband who's wife falls out of love with him. Sarah Silverman makes a surprisingly good appearance (I guess her bit at the end of the film makes it worth it). Directed by Sarah Polley who is, IMO, amazing.
Reminds me of Stephen Glass [1], the reporter who fabricated entire events and wrote about them in The New Republic, as well as the movie Catfish [2].
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fabulist
2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catfish_(film)
I'd figure it was much higher than that. Over the years I've had at least 5 accounts and the woman from the movie 'Catfish' had over 20 accounts.
as a side note that woman in the movie 'catfish' had 16 accounts.
Highly recommend the Catfish Movie if you have not seen it. A variant of the same technique is employed.
http://www.iamrogue.com/catfish
Awful. I spent two years on that site, met 2 people in person, sent literally 100s upon 100s of messages. Giant waste of time - I'm thoroughly convinced online dating does not work. Have you seen the movie Catfish? Its kind of like that, no one is who they appear to be on the internet. Sorry if I'm ranting. OKCupid is "free", but it took away many, many hours that I'll never get back.
I met a girl one time who said "You get a good relationship when you need it the least." I think that is the crux of why it doesn't work or can't work. It's like when you find something you've lost, but only after you stop searching for it.