Do You Have a Catfish In Your Tank?

Is your fake identity fooling millions of people's eyes? This is a question that has evolved since the emergence of social media and maybe way before that! Who is what and what is who? YES, I meant to word the question that way and NO your eyes are not deceiving you. In the documentary film "Catfish", we see a young man named YaNiz who develops an interest in a little girl's artwork. The little girl's name was Abby and her artwork appeared to be a bit mature for her age. Additionally, Yaniz gains a strong relationship with Abby's "sister", Megan. Yaniz finds himself talking to Megan at every opportunity he can as they exchange messages and pictures through Facebook. BUT WAIT, Megan makes music too! She writes a song for Yaniz and he begins to feel for her even more. But as he listens to more of her music, he runs across a song that is THE EXACT same as the one sent to him by Megan that was sung by another artist. At this point, we see Yaniz beginning to make more correlations to discover if Megan and Abby are really as amazing as they are portrayed to be. It leads to Yaniz and his crew actually taking a trip to where the family lives. They take this trip without letting the family know that they would be arriving. They stop by Megan's farm first to discover that she does not have animals there and she is "missing" herself. I WOULD HAVE DRAWN THE LINE AT THIS POINT! Once Yaniz arrives to actually meet the family, they meet the mother, Angela, and the father, Vince. The brothers are handicapped and little Abby does not know ANYTHING about art. The parents LOOK NOTHING LIKE THE PICTURES ON FACEBOOK! We later find out that the mother, ANGELA, is responsible for the artwork and the multiple fake profiles on Facebook. MEGAN is FAKE, SHE DOES NOT EXIST! 

Could this be the case with many of the social media profiles that we scroll past every day? Authenticity is a quality that we wish is present once things seem too good to be true. For the most part, we relish on how people portray themselves in the media and we just go by that thinking that we KNOW the person. It gets to the point where we might even have to check ourselves when making these assumptions. How many catfish are there in your tank? The real truth reveals itself once it is discovered that we ARE what we try to avoid (lies, deceit, and false portrayals). MANAGE the catfish that linger on your tank!