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Monday, November 27, 2017

Catfish

When you are text messaging an online friend that you have never met in real life, can you say you really knew that person? It is an occurring problem in our modern world, a problem that is address in this past week's film, Catfish. The thing about putting information out online is you can choose what you may or may not put out there. Got an embarrassing secret you do not want anyone else to know? Don't tell anyone about it. With that, one has to be wary when interacting with a stranger online.

Like with one of my previous posts in dealing with Uncanny Valley in Be Right Back, I will start off with text. Only this time, the text came in two different forms: online and handwriting. However, Nev never encountered Abby's actual handwriting before he got her letters. He would not have known that those were not her letters. Likewise with Megan's text messages on phone and Facebook. Nev definitely would have not known the fabrication of identity behind all those profiles that Angela monitored. There is only so much you can possibly know from only text or written words.   

With voice next on the list, things get more complex but not impossible. As we saw in the film, Angela slow down her voice in order to distinguish it enough to be possibly another woman's. Due to lack of prior contact, Nev would have not yet known that Megan's voice was not her own. Also, the fact that a person's voice is independent of one's appearance. Hearing Angela's voice on the phone did not make Nev or his brothers think "I am really talking to the person on the profile picture?". 

Speaking of appearances, we saw that the pictures on the Facebook profiles did not match the real-life pictures of Angela and most of her family. The pictures were stolen from the Internet or their friends. Meaning anyone could put a picture of another person as their profile picture, potentially fooling anyone into thinking that the photo is showing their "actual" appearances. People using this tactic can make themselves appear as anything they want basically. It is a question some may have to ask themselves, "Is this really what they look like?". 

The fact that these factors can be fabricated may be settling to some. But it really proves we have to watch who we are interacting with online for sure. This is a problem that still befalls people today when meeting strangers online. However, it is this caution that helps in avoidance of situations that are shown or mentioned in Catfish.


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