Catfish. If you are a 60-year-old man with a hobby of fishing then you are immediately picturing yesterday’s catch of the day. Well, this generation has an entirely different concept for the word “catfish,” and it has absolutely nothing to do with the whiskered fish. The word today can be defined as someone who pretends to be a different person by creating a false online profile and pursuing romantic relationships with other people online.
“I think people who create fake online profiles just want to meet people, but they’re scared to be themselves so they just make up profiles and have online relationships,” said Lisa Bent, a junior at DePaul University.
Catfish has quickly become a topic that is swirling around both social and traditional forms of media all because of a documentary that quickly gained notoriety.
In 2010, a documentary film was released titled “Catfish,” directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman. This film gained recognition because it features Schulman’s brother, Nev Schulman, on a quest to meet the girl he had been communicating with online.
But this movie was not a low-budget sequel to “You’ve Got Mail,” as the documentary showed the reality of Nev Schulman falling in love online with a woman and her family he had never met and the disappointment he endured when he found out the girl of his dreams was not who she said she was.
Nev Schulman had been “catfished.”
After the success of the documentary, Schulman received hundreds of emails from people who found themselves in the same situation. All of these emails told the same story: I am in love with this guy or girl online, but every time we try to meet, it never ends up happening. Can you help me?
Nev Schulman decided he could help these people and partnered up with MTV to create “Catfish: The TV Show.” The show, which airs Monday nights on MTV, shows Schulman trying to connect people with their online relationship partners, who they have never met. However, just like Schulman’s experience, the show reveals a lot more