I agree it's often done out of a need for attention. It can also be a way for unattractive people to feel desirable. A former high school friend of mine uses all fake photos on her Facebook - mostly stolen from the same girl. She has apparently been reported for stealing this girl's photos more than once, has had her account suspended and had to remove all the pics, and yet people still somehow believe she's this girl. In reality, she's overweight, frumpy and unattractive, just as she always was. I feel bad for the girl whose photos she keeps stealing, but not particularly so for the dupes who believe she's this girl. There are any number of red flags that should clue these people - mostly sad middle-aged guys who fawn all over her and indulge her drama - in to the fact that she is bullshtting them. That a few of the photos she claims are of her are very clearly of different women than the main one whose photos she uses. That she uses her real age and yet the photos depict a woman 10 to 15 years younger. That she drones on and on about all her medical issues (I'm not sure if these are real health issues or made up to further the drama) while her photos show someone who looks like the picture of health. Another friend of ours confronted her via PM about her catfishing and she merely kept insisting that she had lost weight and bleached her hair (I guess she had no explanation for why the girl in the photos had, y'know, a different face than her). She will ask for money on her FB - she'll say her heat or electricity is about to be shut off, or that she's going to be evicted. I dunno if any of these guys has sent her money, but I know she has blocked a few who have discovered her charade - and of course makes herself out to be the victim. I will never understand how so many people can be so easily duped, even sad, desperate middle-aged men. And I can't understand presenting a false face to the world. You'll never have anything real that way.
The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.
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filmcritic-16538
7 years ago
GirlwonderReturns: That is very interesting, i hope your former high school friend gets out of that phase soon.
Yes a lot of those Catfish people are usually overweight insecure people, it's a vicious cycle, and how long has Catfish been on the air? yet people still keep falling victim to that online stuff. Another major sign of a catfish is that they refuse to video-chat. Skype is free and they won't even go to an internet cafe or something. These people all need to grow up, the whole thing is just silly, they're degrading themselves.
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a_crow_quilled_threnody
7 years ago
In all fairness, I never video chat with people. Not my thing. I've had people beg me, or I stall for months on it before I cave in. There's been some episodes where the other person turned out to be the real person in their pictures, and were simply too shy to Skype, or just didn't like to. I find it uncomfortable, that's all. And using Skype on your phone isn't fun. Gotta hold a phone at your face the whole time, blahhh.
But yeah so many episodes end where it's just an overweight person. Pretty much what you'd expect. I've known quite a few people over my life that use fake pictures. One guy was doing it just because he was dark skinned; actually ended up being MORE attractive than his fake pic (and like 6 foot 6 lol)
Another was a girl that ended up being more attractive, too. She was definitely playing multiple guys at once, and this is back when not many people were using Webcam -- the AIM and Yahoo chat room days.
Most people I've known that catfish do so just to comfortably talk with people and not get ignored. They just want basic social interaction and distractions. I don't think most of these people purposely try to date or make others want to date them; it just ends up happening naturally. I've had dozens of people wanting to date me from online forums and apps, and I never flirt or try to pursue that route. You'd be surprised at how decent conversation online is all it takes to make people fall head over heels. I think the ones that pretend they never really had feelings for the person are just too embarrassed to admit they do care about them, because they probably know the person is upset and already not going to speak to them again. Defense mechanism.
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