Lying to One's Self

When I was watching the movie "Catfish" in class it astonished me that someone could create a different identity from themselves and constantly lie to someone else. The film was about Nev who becomes friends with an eight year old child prodigy who paints picture. He starts sending the eight year old girl pictures for her to paint and they develop a friendship. As this friendship grows closer, Nev starts to develop a relationship with the little girl's family. He begins to develop an even closer relationship with the little girl's older sister, whose name is Meghan. Nev begins to fall in love with Meghan and has genuine feelings for her. This is until he realizes that Meghan  who was an aspiring musician had been lying to him about being a musician the whole time they were talking.  So Nev, his brother and his best friend decide to go Michigan to see Meghan and find out what else she was lying about. When they reach their destination they realize that Abby is not a child artist and that their is no Meghan. Angela who was Abby's mom decided to create a fake profile on the Internet to pretend to be Angela. She has lied about Abby being an  artist and about the Facebook family. I felt sorry for Angela because she just wanted to escape her reality. In her regular life she had to deal with a husband who didn't show her any kind of emotional support and also had to raise two special needs children, while also raising her daughter. Angela wanted to be free from all of her responsibilities, that is why she created this virtual reality. She enjoyed the friendship that she was developing with Nev, she craved it.  This is why Angela continued to lie, even though Nev knew the truth. She didn't want to give up this virtual reality because it was the only way she could escape from her day to day life. I feel like many of us create a fake version of what our life is suppose to be like on a daily basis. We might not take it as far as Angela did on "Catfish" but we still make people believe that our life is perfect on the Internet but it is actually is far from it .When we use Instagram people tend to post pictures that are the most flattering or pictures that have the best scene in them. People go through great lengths to take the most flattering picture of themselves, by taking their pictures multiple times and even using a filter to make it even more perfect. They want  society to see them as  always looking their best and always being happy, when in reality they really are not. The movie Catfish opened my eyes on how social media is not who we really are but who we want to be.