The iconic series Catfish: The TV Show has been airing on MTV for what feels like thirty years (12 years, 8 seasons). For anyone not familiar with it, this show helps individuals meet the person they are in an online relationship with, more often than not this person is a catfish. A catfish is someone who pretends to be someone else online. This includes a different picture, a different name, and sometimes a different gender. Even though social media has expanded tremendously and people should know better by now, Catfish is still going strong and I will not shut up about it!
How It Started:
Catfish first made its mark in 2010 as a documentary. The movie followed the story of Nev Schulman. Nev’s brother and his friend, Henry Joost, began filming Nev’s experience and friendship with someone he met online. A young girl, Abby, reached out to Nev and complimented a piece of his artwork that was featured in a magazine. Nev was then introduced (virtually, of course) to Abby’s mother and sister Megan. Megan and Nev then began an online romance and that’s when his brother became suspicious. The film crew investigates the family and ends up traveling to their house where Abby’s mother confesses to pretending to be each member of her family. Nev never talked to Megan or Abby.
After the movie was successful, Nev began receiving thousands of emails that told similar stories to his. Nev partnered up with his filmmaker buddy Max and began creating a television show that would air on MTV. The first season shocked audiences with how emotional and dramatic these experiences could be.
Max left the show in 2018 to pursue his film career and even worked on the movie We Are Your Friends with Zac Efron. Nev worked with various guest co-hosts to continue to the show, but Max was ultimately replaced by Kamie Crawford, who stepped right into the role and has created some of the most iconic and funniest scenes in the show’s history.
What Happens in An Episode:
At the beginning of every episode, Nev and Kamie read an email sent in by someone who believes they are being catfished or by a concerned bystander who thinks their friend is being tricked. They gather some basic information including how the couple met, how long they’ve known each other, and what excuses the other person has used to prevent them from showing their face. Normally, the person who reached out to the show is cautious, but they truly believe the person they are talking to is telling the truth.
Typically, Nev and Kamie travel to the person who wrote the show and conduct their research from that town. Typical research includes reverse image searching to find the original post associated with the catfish and looking up phone numbers to determine what name it’s registered under. They also look into Cashapp, Venmo, Facebook and Instagram accounts, and contact anyone who has interacted with them frequently. Sometimes the hosts can determine whether or not someone is lying about their identity and find who they truly are in the first fifteen minutes of an episode.
Once they collect all this information, they share it with the person getting catfished and then reach out to the person they believe is lying. Normally, it takes a lot of convincing for the person to agree to meet up and sometimes they refuse to give Nev a straight answer. Whether or not the person agrees, Nev and the rest of the crew still travel to the catfish’s location in hopes of meeting up. The fact that they just show up at a random person’s door is insane, but they do it anyway and most of the time the two people end up screaming at each other on the person’s front lawn.
The first day the couple meets up usually ends poorly and awkwardly, so the hosts leave with the person who got lied to. The following day, they all meet up again, and most of the time, the two can talk through things. Although they rarely end up in a relationship, the two people involved both get closure.
People Are STILL Catfishing:
In the first few seasons, the person catfishing only used Facebook and it was pretty easy to create a fake profile. However, since more social media platforms became popular, people have had to create multiple accounts to keep their stories straight. Even the idea of not being able to Facetime or video chat seems strange because almost every cell phone has a camera and app to video chat, even if it isn’t an iPhone.
To keep the show fresh and interesting, the creators added new elements to each season. During season 7, the show featured stories with several twists, so the audience couldn’t guess what was coming. Some episodes featured stories of people who did not know they would be on the show. A friend or family member writes into the show and Nev and Kamie surprise the person who is being catfished.
Catfish even continued to film in quarantine. Nev and Kamie met up through Zoom and researched together by sharing their screens. The first meeting between the catfish and the person they lied to is always suspenseful and doing it over Zoom has not changed that. However, the hosts can’t simply show up at the imposter’s house so they have to convince them to click the link and reveal their true identity.
It seems crazy that people still have to worry about being catfished. However, Nev and Kamie continue to have vulnerable people on the show who want to find love. People get lonely and finding someone to talk to on the internet is relatively easy. Most of the time, those who lie tend to do so because they are insecure and don’t think people will like them for who they are. However, there are some instances where the imposters, and even the people who called into the show, are malicious.
In Season 1 Episode 4, Jasmine believes she is talking to Mike. She was actually talking to Missy, who created the account to get revenge on Jasmine. Apparently, Jasmine and Missy met at the local mall and got to talking. It turns out both girls were seeing the same guy. Missy then created the Mike account to get her to stop talking to the guy who was cheating on the both of them. Missy then pretended to be Mike for two years. It’s revealed that a lot of horrible events happened prior to Missy meeting the man that was dating both girls, so she was extremely protective of that relationship. She was angry, wanted revenge and achieved that.
Another example of malicious catfish is Season 8 Episode 2, which resulted in one of the worst post-reveal fights in Catfish history. Nev and Kamie are called in to help Alfred who has been talking to a man named Adonis on Facebook. It is later revealed that Alfred is being catfished by his ex-boyfriend of six-years, Antonnio. Antonnio created the fake profile nearly a year before the pair had broken up, confirming that Alfred was “cheating” on Antonnio with Adonis, who was actually Antonnio the entire time. The two got into a physical fight during the reveal; however, when the couple caught up with Catfish months later, they admitted they got back together and were in a relationship again.
Not all catfish are malicious, some people just seem to do it for fun. Some even pretend to be celebrities and people actually believe them. In Season 2 Episode 15, Keyonnah believed she was talking to Bow Wow. Nev and Max almost believed this since Keyonnah was sent $10,000 by Bow Wow and that typically never happens on the show. However, it was revealed that Keyonnah was actually talking to Dee, a legendary catfisher who was proud of herself for convincing straight women that she was a man. In Season 5 Episode 15, Spencer thought he was talking to Katy Perry for six years. After learning “Katy” was actually Harriet and meeting the real Harriet in person, Spencer was still convinced he was talking to the popstar. He insisted that the entire ordeal was a joke orchestrated by Katy Perry herself and he even continued to send messages to the account run by Harriet even after they filmed the show together.
With the popularity of the show, people obviously want to take advantage of the opportunity and get their 15 minutes of fame. A great example of this is the episode with guest host Machine Gun Kelly. In Season 4 Episode 18, Hundra called Catfish to meet Emily in real life. This was a big deal to Hundra because she was not out as a lesbian to her friends and family, which meant she would be coming out on the show. After doing research and confronting the alleged Emily, Hundra and her co-conspirators came clean to Nev and MGK, and MGK lost his mind. They were filming during Father’s Day Weekend and MGK missed celebrating with his daughter to film this show. Just for it to turn out to be bullshit. He wasn’t helping anyone, if anything, he was helping them get their 15 minutes.
As the show has gone on, the hosts have learned to recognize a hoax from a mile away. In Season 8 Episode 79, Nev and Kamie are extremely weary of the person who claims to be getting catfished. Jaquan is a TikTok star and his content partner, Justyn, introduced him to a girl online. Jaquan and Justyn make prank content together, so the two of them being in on this together is very likely. During the initial catfish reveal, it looks like Justyn and his friend Nita orchestrated this whole thing to play a joke on Jaquan and inspire him to get back into dating. Obviously, Nev, Kamie, and the producers find this suspicious and review all the footage and information in post. It turns out all three people were involved in the scheme to get on the show, exactly how Nev and Kamie predicted. But, not surprisingly, the people involved refuse to admit they were involved.
There’s No Show Like Catfish: The TV Show
This show has produced some of the best reality TV moments of all time. I still say “You should’ve never called me a fat ass Kelly Price.” I tried to look into the most iconic episodes, but frankly, there were too many to write out.
It truly is an amazing dating show because it is real. Well, I hope it’s real. It’s convincing (to me) because of how shocked people are when it’s revealed they were talking to a catfish. It is extremely emotional when someone realizes that the person they had intimate conversations with is not the person they said they were. This person is a stranger. A liar. The person who has been tricked has every right to be confused, angry, and even disgusted by this behavior.
But in the end, Catfish proves that people crave affection and human interaction. People will create a giant web of lies in order to keep talking to the one person they care about. They will put a great amount of effort into keeping up the lie so the person won’t figure it out and leave. But they deserve to figure it out. If the catfish truly cared about the person, or they were tired of keeping track of all the lies and getting calls from Nev, they needed to come clean. Which is why they all agree to meet up in the end.
Over the years, Nev and his various co hosts have become professionals at talking to people in unique relationships. In the beginning of the show, Nev and Max were a little harsh and a bit judgmental. Nev and Kamie could be like that today, but they aren’t. Instead they empathize with everyone involved and try to reach a beneficial solution, even if everyone involved lied and manipulated their way onto the show.
Now, I’ll finally shut up about Catfish: The TV Show, but I promise you, I will never stop watching.
Kommentare