Catfish

This documentary freaked me out and instigated more thought than the “Black Mirror” episodes. The reason being that this kind of thing is happening right now and could very easily happen to anyone. The internet is a terrifying place and what’s worse is that a lot of people do not know that. A lot of younger children, older adults, or anyone who is new to the internet are at serious risk of not only being catfished but scammed or even worse. I have been using the internet for years now and so I have seen all sorts of phishing emails or sites that want me to download random programs. I understand how people who have never seen such things could get easily tricked. What freaked me out about the documentary was that Nev had years of experience with the internet and still got fooled. Angela created a plot so deep that neither Nev, Ariel, nor Henry realized what was going on. If Angela was doing this more than ten years ago, I can only imagine what people are doing now to try and scam others. Technology has advanced immensely in the past decade which means that scammers have adapted and advanced with it. This is frightening because we have no idea what they can do now, we may be getting information taken without even realizing it. We may be getting information stolen as I am typing this and you are reading this. We might think that because we have an antivirus we are protected from anything and everything but that is not necessarily true. Viruses evolve over time which is why we still get sick and computers still get infected. There are people who make a living from creating and improving viruses. Angela did not necessarily make a living from the paintings but it was a source of income. She also knew that because people believed an eight-year-old was the artist that it would sell more. That may have been one of the reasons for starting the scheme. She tried so hard to keep the lies going even after Nev showed up because she was obsessed. She even lied about having cancer. I don’t understand how Angela was able to lie and play with Nev’s emotions for so long and not feel like she was doing something wrong. If she did know the results of her actions, what kind of person would continue this lie? I don’t know but I was amazed by this story and I hope it wasn’t a lie in and of itself.