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Saturday, November 25, 2017

"Catfish"-ed

I was honestly super stoked to see what other twisted "Black Mirror" episode was to be shown next, but instead "Catfish" was played.
This is the documentary version, but it has a spinoff series that continues to air on MTV. The documentary is centered around a young man named Nev who "meets" a woman named Megan online. They talk for months sharing intimate stories and conversations, they give insight on family members, and basically tell each other anything as if they had physically known each other. The catch: they had never Skyped or met in person prior to the documentary being made. They met on a very familiar site named Facebook and continued from there. They texted, spoke on the phone, and saw pictures of each other on the site that they met on. I guess Nev came to his senses and decided to see if Megan was who she says or maybe he just wanted to finally meet her, either way the documentary came about. They filmed the whole meeting process and thats when complications arose. He first met Angela who was supposed to be the mother of Megan I believe, I don't really know I think I missed that part. Well to Nev's surprise, Angela ended up being Megan. Angela was a married woman with two kids from her Husband's previous marriage. There was also another little girl named Abby, but I do not know whose she was but "Megan" spoke to Nev about Abby often.
We did not have a discussion in class due to the holiday, however this documentary shows the relationship between technology and people's identities. Are they ever who they say they are? It's incredibly scary that you can talk to someone and develop a connection with them just for them to be someone completely different. But in a way, are they even different? They are technically the same person, just physically different. So would you say that they are the same person, or that they are two totally different people? I think that is exactly what Dr. J is trying to get us to ask ourselves. I would like to say that they are the same person and that maybe since all trust is gone after finding out that they look completely different, that it clouds our judgement and we would immediately throw a flag up and say that they are not the same. But technically, they are. I am too conflicted to come up with a definite answer because I am saying they are kind of the same person, but if I put myself in that situation I would no longer be with the person because "they are not who they say they are". Your thoughts and comments would greatly be appreciated because I cannot fully decide!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

First of all, I did not realize that this show airs on MTV, so I may have to take a look into more episodes. I agree that the issue between Megan and Nev was important, because Nev thought he knew Megan from the all their messages and phone calls, but that was not true. In my opinion, the person behind the computer screen in some cases is the same as what the person want's them to be perceived as. In the case of Megan and Megan's mom, she was not trying to harm Nev, but was not sure how to talk to him. The reason why someone would have to hide who they are might be, because they are afraid of how their recipient will react if they knew the truth about themselves.