Have you ever catfished or been catfished?

Err…thought this was about fish. Was about to post that I caught one once and fried it crispy.

In case you haven’t seen the movie, which in my opinion is a must-see, the term “catfish” comes from something one of the characters says toward the end:

“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 this idea that if you put these cods in these big vats, put some catfish in with them. And the catfish would keep the cod agile. And there are those people who are catfish in life. And they keep you on your toes, they keep you guessin’ they keep you thinkin’ they keep you fresh. And I thank god for the catfish, because we would be dull and boring if we didn’t have somebody nipping at our fin.”

As to whether I’ve ever been catfished… well… perhaps.

You had to ask this on Inauguration Day?

Yeah, we all get catfished every four years.

It happened back on Answerbag. We all had our hears ripped out of our chests by this person who was our friend for nearly two years. We fought with them through our illness, and then their death. There was a whole thing about certain people on AB being invited to some kind of funeral or something (maybe someone who was involved is on here and can remember; I wasn’t one of the invitees) and right beforehand it was “revealed” that the person was joking all along, was never sick…

It was disgusting.

Wasn’t there a well-known user on here (and previously on Answerbag) who turned out to be a catfish? I’m sure I can’t name the name, but I do remember it…

@DominicX Are we talking about the same person?

I don’t think so; the person I’m thinking of told stories about a wife who died.

Sonofabitch, will these people never stop.

Oh, wait, I remember the one you were talking about. I don’t know if they were a catfish or not. But I was fairly close with that person, and was utterly shocked at what they turned out to be at the end of their time here.

@DominicX the only person I recall who told stories about a dead wife was also a former Army officer who had great difficulty relating to people. Apparently, she had been the one to get him out of his shell, before she was killed in an auto accident (I think).

He seemed pretty real to me. He has since left Fluther.

@DominicX & @Seek_Kolinahr I think you are speaking of the same person. Here’s a link to some answers in this question where some users describe how Fluther got catfished.

The first one was different, but I certainly remember ol’ Stranger. He and I were totally cool until the bu-fu-ing teenaged virgins questions started.

That’s a fascinating TV show. People really want to have faith, and they’ll go to great lengths ignore the big flags and believe outlandish stories. The victims aren’t stupid; they’re just trusting.

I’ve never been catfished, but I did have a very bad experience before the internet existed. Some friends met a nice, single doctor and thought that he and I would be a nice match. They arranged a blind date, and we saw each other a few times. Long story short—he wasn’t single, he wasn’t a doctor, and he certainly wasn’t nice. He was a pathological liar and very dangerous. Two weeks after I’d met him, I had to take legal action to make him go away.

Lesson learned—make sure that you know both parties before you play matchmaker. If you arrange for a nice girl to meet someone you’ve just met and can’t vouch for, you’re putting her in a very vulnerable position.

I liked him. I missed the events that led to his ouster, so I don’t know why it happened.

Neither a catfisher nor a catfish be. Someone famous once said that. I live by it. I tend to get to know people in a certain way that makes it hard to fake who they are. Eventually, you can tell if someone is not telling you a story that hangs together. At that point, I let go.

Once I was involved with someone on another website that a third friend of mine thought was catfishing me. She ended up disappearing, due to illness. I wish I knew what really happened to her. I still believe she was genuine, but it is possible she wasn’t. It doesn’t really matter since no harm was done to either of us, I don’t believe. Although my friend thinks otherwise.

Yes, actually, I have been “catfished,” if I’m understanding correctly. The person… who was claiming to be multiple people, ended up stalking me, I had to get the authorities involved, and then they slandered me all over the internet. Google searches of my actual name bring up some icky stuff from that person. But the lies on top of lies still blow my mind to this day, this whole fake existence, it’s almost surreal. I still catch myself saying “them” instead of “her” when I talk about that experience.

@Seek_Kolinahr, @jonsblond I find this story fascinating (just read the other thread). How did anyone ever figure out that he was lying? Did it happen in the public, or was it in private messages? And then, did he just quietly disappear, or was there some kind of announcement to the collective?

People are so strange.

@glacial He was eventually outed after someone recognized his story as similar but slightly different from the one he told on AnswerBag and confronted him. His story got weirder and weirder before he was outed. A lot of was done in PMs and some was discussed “publicly.” It was quite something.

@glacial The final nail in the coffin was a picture he posted, supposedly of his late wife. A quick image search proved that to be false, and the whole house of cards started tumbling down. We eventually escorted him out of the building.

He claimed to have Aspergers. Was that ever disproven?

Wow, that’s crazy.

@wundayatta Not that I know of. I figure it’s entirely possible, but not relevant to the deception.

stranger was a catfish? Huh. I was on a break when he got weird, I guess. Too bad; I remember him as a good contributor.

I don’t think I have ever been catfished. Didn’t realize it was such a big thing.

From what I have seen it is fairly typical for the stories to get more and more outlandish and that is how these people usually end up getting found out.

I remember on another site this woman who claimed to be about 23, but when she spoke (it had a voice chat option) sounded about 50. Things she said didn’t add up and many people thought she was fake but she had some people totally convinced and they would go to bat in support of her. One day she logged in and chatted for a while, said she would love to have children and then left. The next day, one of her ‘friends’ logged in and said he had been informed she had died – three days earlier! Never did find out the truth but that was very odd. Ghost chatter or catfish?

@Bellatrix The feigned death seems to be very common for catfishers. When a person grows weary of a false identity, or when he/she no longer wishes to maintain a faux-relationship, some “friend” sends a tragic report of an untimely passing.

This happened to a catfished friend of mine. His telephone/online girlfried (who, of course, was a fiction) told him, in the guise of another identity, that she’d died. The poor man even grieved for her.

It would be grief, anyway, upon discovering she was fake. But there might be less anger, until you discover the death is fake. Why do people catfish, do you think?

@wundayatta, perhaps they aren’t happy with who they are? So they invent a new person who is sexy, young and playful. I know of other people who I suspect may not have been authentic and have ‘relationships’ online. It obviously makes them feel wanted and needed. It seems cruel to me as the person on the other end of this situation is often very sincere and is left hurt and confused.

In the case of ‘imaginary illnesses’ and I have come across that more than once, I think it’s attention seeking. The person is probably very lonely and the illness gets them a lot of care and attention.

Well I guess I have. I told this story on another thread a few days ago. I’m embarrassed about it but I was a youngin’. I would never do it again.

I discovered blogging really young – 11 or so. I was really into it, had online friends, the whole shebang. My best friend blogged on the same site too and we had a lot of the same online friends.

At one point, I guess I was 13 or so, I started writing fiction. At first it was for my eyes only, I was too self-conscious, but that stopped being satisfying. I wanted feedback and most importantly I wanted my best friend’s feedback. But I still didn’t have the guts to attach my name to my work.

It was at this point that I came up with the convoluted plan to create a fake blog, befriend my best friend online, and then post my fiction where she would see it.

It….spiraled out of control, a little bit. I had to make up a fake life to blog about. My best friend quite liked the fake me – and why shouldn’t she, she likes the real me – and ended up chatting with the fake me on AOL a couple of times. I got her attached to somebody who wasn’t real. I feel bad about that. Not my most shining moment. I’m not proud of who I was at that age.

As I started to feel guilty about what I was doing, the fake me posted less and less and eventually disappeared into obscurity. Not uncommon for people to lose interest in a blog, so it wasn’t suspicious really. I wouldn’t ever do the stupid fake death trick.

So that’s my confession.

@wundayatta “Why do people catfish, do you think?”

I can’t explain the human behavior behind catfishing, but you’ve asked for opinions, not authority. I offer the following:

(1) The internet seems so vast and anonymous. People try on new identities, as easily as one might try on new hats, and they feel insulated by the vastness of cyberspace. They truly don’t think about the consequences.

(2) Someone’s unhappy with who he/she really is and wants to live out a false persona. A morbidly obese individual might create an identity with photographs of someone fit and slender. Somebody who feels like a failure in life can suddenly have multiple doctorates and stellar professional success.

(3) Boredom.

(4) Malice. Sadly, there are catfishers who scam for money and costly gifts. Other catfishers just seem to enjoy holding power over and manipulating unsuspecting victims.

I am actually an 11 year old girl from West Lake Hills in Austin Texas, with an obsession for Justin Bieber and The Sims games. <3 xoxoxo

When I was a kid I used to do that as a prank, I would go in to IRC chat rooms and pretend to be a woman called Marga21. Then I would wait for everyone to message me, and the fun would begin.

Normally, I would pick the first guy who talked to me, and then talk to him for about 30 minutes or so before pranking him.

My goal was to ask them were they lived, then tell them that I lived some place close by. I would normally use a map to put myself a good 20km – 30km away from their location.

At this point, I would clone myself, and enter the same chat room under a different user name, usually psychohack666.

I would tell the guy I was chatting to as Marga21, that I had hacked him and also hacked Marga21, and that I could see everything him and Marga were saying in private.

They would normally ignore me, so I would copy paste a few things over as proof. This is when the guy would normally warn Marga, and Marga would tell him something like “don’t worry about it, it is just some jerk”.

What the guy never realized, is he had normally given his address and phone number to Marga, and the conversation went on.

Eventually, as psychohack666, I would tell the guy that I am outside of Marga’s house, and to tell Marga that I like her green curtains and black leather sofa.

The guy would tell Marga what psychohack666 had said, and Marga would say “that is creepy”. Then the conversation went on.

Finally, as psychohack666, I would type to the guy “Ok, I have had enough of this, I’m going to kill marga”. At the exact same time, that Marga told him “be right back, there is someone at my door”.

At this point, the guy would normally say to Marga “noooooo” or something along those lines.

I would then let the chat hang silent for a minute or two, and then as Marga21, I would say to the guy “see, I told you I was going to fucking kill her, thanks for giving her your address, you are next!” (thus proving psychohack666 was using Marga’s computer) and then the guy would normally fear-quit the chat and I would lauch.

Now days, about the most catfishing I do is tricking pedophiles in to thinking I’m a 14 year old girl, so I can give them the number of the local police station and tell them to call me cause my parents are not home.

@poisonedantidote What do you think are the moral issues involved in these pranks?

Just had to say; best question ever. Also, I’ve never been catfished, and have never done so either.

@poisonedantidote I love you.

Someone I know in real life is also on FB and he puts out these posts that would lead you to believe he’s inspirational, calm, happy, spiritual, single, employed, leading a simple life, all these good things, and in real life he’s angry, broke, unemployed, chatting with multiple people, hostile, threatening people to where they talk about reporting him to the authorities, a scary persona that is nothing like what he will lead you to believe on FB. If someone befriended him who did not know him, they would be shocked to find out what he’s really like.

No, I have never been catfished because I have never gotten “that far” with a stranger on the internet.

I recommend everyone see the documentary “Catfish” which was produced by the same guy who does the TV show.

@wundayatta I’m not sure what you mean, the prank was something I did as a kid when I was about 10–12 years old.

As for pranking pedophiles, I just do it for the laugh.

@Seek_Kolinahr Thanks :P

poison..not impressed.

pitiful/ disgusting/ bleh