Catfish

The abilities of Web 2.0 relationships came to life in the documentary Catfish. Catfish stars Nev Schulman, a photographer from New York who works and lives with his brothers and friends, who are also artists. After having one of his photographs published in the New York Times, Nev received a painting of this photograph in the mail. The painting was said to be painted by Abby Pierce, a eight-year-old girl from a small town in rural Michigan. Nev loved Abby’s artwork, and began to form a friendship with her through Facebook. Abby updated Nev about the progress of her artwork; she said that she had rented out an old warehouse in her town in order to display her work.

Nev also became friends with her mother, sister, brother, and some of her other friends from Michigan. Nev formed a particularly close relationship with Abby’s sister Megan, a young attractive musician. They began contacting each other through Facebook, texting, and even phone calls. After a few months of talking and forming an intimate online relationship, Megan sends Nev a few cover songs that she decided to sing and record for him. Nev’s brother and friend really liked Megan’s songs, so they decided to look up the original songs on YouTube. Instead of finding different versions of the songs Megan sent Nev, they found the same exact songs Megan said she recorded posted by other YouTube users. Megan used other people’s songs and claimed that they belonged to her. This event caused Nev and his friends to start to believe that the Abby story may be false.

To help answer their suspicions, Nev decided to do some further research on Abby’s family. He discovered that the warehouse that she had claimed to rent out was currently vacant, and had been vacant for four years. After growing more and more suspicious about the truth and identity behind Abby, Megan, and their family, Nev and his friends decided to fly out to Michigan unexpectedly to meet them.

The guys found Megan’s “house” to be completely deserted; letters he sent her remained sitting in the mailbox. The next morning, they showed up to Angela’s (Abby and Megan’s mom) house for Sunday brunch and obtained the truth about Abby. In reality, Angela was the artist behind Abby’s art; Angela also played Megan throughout her “relationship” wit Nev. Furthermore, Angela created several Facebook accounts pretending to be people who knew her daughters and the rest of her family. When hearing the truth, it was clear that Nev felt as though he had been betrayed. Angela said that the reason why she fabricated an entire group of people on Facebook is that she was using the Internet as an escape from her harsh reality; she had several childhood dreams such as becoming a professional dancer and an artist that she was unable to achieve. Moreover, when Angela married her current husband, she became the mother of two mentally disabled sons. This put a huge amount of stress on her, which somewhat explains why every night at eleven o’clock Angela slipped into the persona of a multitude of online characters.

Angela’s Facebook scheme pretty much epitomizes the idea of “democratized media.” Democratized media means that everyone can participate and have a say in what goes on on the Internet. Angela took it upon herself to create a wide range of identities on Facebook and to fool Nev into an elaborate scheme. Angela’s scheme echoes Andrew Keen’s viewpoint on social media. Keen thinks that the popularization of social media has led to an increase in false information being transported through the Internet. Keen also believes that social media promotes plagiarism on the Internet. Angela clearly demonstrates this, because she used photographs of people she did not know for her multiple Facebook profiles. Although I do not personally agree with Keen’s views, his beliefs on democratized media are portrayed through Catfish. Without the Internet, it is unlikely that Angela would be able to manipulate Nev in such a complicated way. The Internet allows people to hide their true identities behind identities they create online. People can pick and choose what information they want the world to see, and what information they do not want the world to see.

Although I personally believe that social media is a vital aspect of today’s society and is benefiting the world of communications, Catfish demonstrates how it can be taken for granted and used in a negative way. Social media should be used so real life people can maintain real life relationships. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t see a problem in meeting people online through online dating or activities of the like, however, I find it completely unnecessary and unfair for people to create fake identities, especially when trying to manipulate others.