Catfish

Catfish is a documentary, or mockumentary depending on how you look at it, film that was released in 2010 and was directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman. The movie documents a young photographer, Nev Schulman’s odd relationship with a family through Facebook. It all started when a young girl, Abby, sent Nev a painting of one of his drawings. She then continues to do this as he sends her some of his photos. Her family members then start to add him on Facebook and thank him for what he’s doing for Abby. He then continues to correspond with them quite frequently through many different mediums (phone, email, Facebook). He even begins to become emotionally involved with Abby’s older sister, Megan with whom he texted, messaged, and called regularly.  Everything is going seemingly normal until Nev discovers that the songs that Megan posts on her Facebook as originals are all exact recordings from various professional singers. A web of lies then begins to unfold. As Nev becomes suspicious about the family, they decide to pay them a surprise visit and learn the truth. While there, he finds out that the mother, Angelica, masterminded the entire relationship. She created multiple Facebook accounts using fake photos, friends, and information, and contact Nev as if she was them. She even posed as Megan and talked to Nev using a different voice.  The story only gets crazier from there and more lies are revealed. Partly because of how relevant the topic of this movie was to the hundreds of millions of people using Facebook, the film was very successful upon its release.  Despite the fact that most, or even all, of the film may be fake, it still does offer a very chilling portrait of how people can manipulate and misuse technology rather easily to trick unsuspecting victims. This is very important for us to remember in such a technological age.