Deception Through the Internet

In class we watched the documentary Catfish, where a filmmaker named Nev is misled by a middle-aged woman to be not only an 8 year old girl, but also as the 20 year old woman he has an intimate relationship with via social media. A woman named Angela reached out to Nev about her daughter, Abby, who was an artist struggling to get her name out there. Nev would give her inspiration for her paintings by sending her photographs he took, and the relationship continued until he was talking with not only “Abby” and Angela, but also Abby’s older sister Megan. Nev formed a relationship with her through facebook, text messages, and through phone calls. He realized megan was lying about who she was when he found that the music she was sending him labeled as her was actually random artists on youtube. He became skeptical, but continued to allow his brother to capture the relationship for the film they were creating, even though he was aware that this relationship was not real. They traveled to meet the family, and discovered that Megan did not exist, Abby was not an artist, and that Angela was the painter and culprit behind the false identities. I personally believe that this was an awful web of lies that Angela had made for herself, and these actions were terrible. She stole someone's identity and pretended to have a sexual relationship with someone for her own personal fantasies, all while being married. Not only did she deceive Nev, but she cheated on her husband in a sense.

My personal take on this situation is that Angela needed professional help because these behaviors point to someone with schizophrenia or a pathological liar.  No healthy person would be able to justify these actions with any sane reason. Catfishing is more and more prevalent in our world because of how easy social media has made it. People are able to create an entirely different person through their socials that enable them to speak things that they would not normally. I do not believe this is as awful as pretending to be someone else and misleading another person, because this is an outlet for some people that allow them to feel more comfortable. Ultimately, I believe that there is a fine line between when you are completely deceiving someone and openly expressing yourself. Many could argue otherwise, but I feel as though this conversation is too complex to sum up that easily.

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