Catfishing
Catfishing is the practice of fabricating an online persona in order to deceive someone into a romantic, friendship, or occasionally financial relationship.
The main point is that the person you are conversing with online isn't who they say they are.
Contents
Common Signs of Catfishing
How it usually appears:
- False profile pictures, often taken from models or influencers
- Love-bombing: the use of quick, intense affection to emotionally captivate you
- Fictitious name, age, occupation, or entire past
- Making excuses to avoid video calls or in-person meetings
- Eventually requesting cash, presents, or cryptocurrency
Reasons for Catfishing
Reasons for doing it:
- Feeling alone or craving attention
- Scams, including the "romance scam" variety where money is the main objective
- Playing games or being bored
- Insecurity or the desire to appear more successful or attractive
The term "catfishing" describes the fabrication of a false online persona or identity, usually on social networking sites, with the intention of deceiving. Typically, this is done to trick a victim into an online romantic relationship or to obtain some illicit financial gain through fraud, like the pig butchering scam, or through sextortion. Catfishing may also be motivated by a desire to experiment with sexual preferences or to feel more popular.
In order to appear more attractive for financial gain, personal fulfillment, avoiding legal repercussions, or to troll, perpetrators, often referred to as "catfish", usually use phony photos and fabricate information about their personal lives.
Where the Name Comes From
The 2010 documentary Catfish, which tells the story of a man who finds out his online girlfriend's identity isn't real, popularized the name.
In the movie, the woman's husband tells a story about catfish keeping cod active in shipping tanks. He uses this as a metaphor for people who keep others guessing.
Catfishing and Escort Scams
Catfishing also appears in escort and sex scams and escort deposit scams.
A fake escort profile may use someone else's photographs to persuade a customer to send a deposit. The person collecting the money may have no connection to the person shown in the pictures.
How to Recognize Catfishing
- Reverse-image-search their pictures.
- Verify whether their narrative remains consistent over time.
- Anyone who falls in love quickly but is constantly "too busy" to meet should be treated with caution.
- Make a live video call.
Other warning signs include:
- Their claimed location does not match other information they provide. An IP address alone is not reliable proof of location.
- They have inconsistent names, pictures, or information appearing on their profiles.
- They love bomb the victim but refuse to have video calls or phone conversations so that they cannot be verified.
- They ask for money.
- They refuse or repeatedly postpone in-person meetings.
- They isolate victims from real-life social circles by insisting the relationship remain a secret.
Due in part to an increase in the practice's prevalence and several high-profile incidents, public awareness of catfishing has grown in recent years.
Additionally, the term is now used more loosely; anyone who even slightly misrepresents themselves online is accused of catfishing. However, the core meaning is an intentional false identity designed to trick.
