Catfishing (Online Personas)

[Xervello]

The other day a story broke about a popular Notre Dame football player who was purported to be a victim of an online hoax. Apparently he was involved with a girl online, but she turned out to be (according to him) fake. If you want to familiarize yourself with the story, go here: What is a 'Catfish' hoax? How Manti Te'o story links to film, TV show - NBC News Entertainment Frankly, there's a lot of doubt as to whether he made this all up himself to look better in the eyes of Heisman trophy voters/NFL recruits. It's still too early to tell.

However I use this as an opportunity to ask if anyone here has ever been victim to someone online. If anyone developed a friendship or relationship only to be duped by them. I think it's relevant to those of us here in the SPW community because we're probably some of those most susceptable to it. I won't speak for everyone, but I'd guess that a fair amount here do a lot of their networking online. Be they social interactions, friendships or even relationships. The fact that a lot of us are shy, find it difficult to trust others, feel lonely and/or desperate, makes it that much more scarier should we put ourselves out there. That said, I don't want to use this as reason for us not to do it. Just curious as to people's experiences, is all. Be they bad OR good.

If you're not familiar with what Catfishing means, click on that link. Catfish was a documentary (or fictionalized documentary, depending on who you ask) about a guy who established a relationship with a girl online via Facebook. The girl turned out to be a fake persona; the person behind it was an older, married woman who used the relationship as a cathartic escape from her unhappy life. It's a very good film, and worth watching.

 

[NathanielWingatePeaslee]

However I use this as an opportunity to ask if anyone here has ever been victim to someone online. If anyone developed a friendship or relationship only to be duped by them.

I would guess that cases where someone completely invents a persona and uses fake pictures and all to bolster it are relatively rare.

The above case I would call an extreme (assuming it is real), but I think it's not uncommon for an online relationship to be a lot more 'real' to one party than it is to the other. Even when real names and pictures are used, the relationship can still be a fantasy indulgence to some degree for one party while being as real as it gets to the other. I've seen this a number of times.

 

[ImNotMyIllness]

YEEEESSSSSS! This girl that I met online pretended to be someone she wasn't. All of her pictures were lifted off some poor girls profile. She lied about everything. We would talk for hours, I really fell for her. But, she would never meet me. I even bought something for her and said that she could pick it up at the store. After that, she ignored me completely and I was tired of her games.
Through an email search I ended up discovering her true identity. She was NOTHING like the beautiful girl she presented herself as. I just sent her an email, saying "thanks a lot". I wasn't upset anymore. I just felt stupid......

 

[ImNotMyIllness]

Another girl,(met on Facebook) I never was able to confirm that her profile was fake. But, she would make up these rape stories and how she was going to commit suicide. I would frantically beg her not too. But a lot of things didn't add up. And, much of her friend's list looked like fake profiles that she herself set up. Since, I've been through this before, I was aware of all the red flags.

Maybe she was real. But,she would never give me a phone number to reach her. And I was worried sick about her safety. And then she would respond with one word or one sentence answers...........I was done with her nonsense.

 

[Steppen-Wolf]

I once met a Finish girl who turned to be a Spanish guy. I only discovered this after several months of chatting and using a lot of deductive power lol.

The funny thing is that this "girl" was rather popular in a somewhat large forum at the time and had made many acquaintances over the years. It seems like I was the first one to notice that something was off.

It was quite a shame, as that false persona was quite interesting and all I ever wanted in an online friend.

 

[springk]

I never had such experience.

The reason can be..i am not that active in finding people so my range of online acquaintances is rather limited.

As INM and Steppen told their experiences i guess you can find fake people or even people who try to be a fantazied version of themselves online.

I have not come across such personas but as i said i have very few people in real life as well as online ..i guess i should venture more. At the same time it would be very frustating to tell your life out to a fake person if you bumped into one.

 

[Lamb]

I once met a Finish girl who turned to be a Spanish guy. I only discovered this after several months of chatting and using a lot of deductive power lol.

I'm sorry that happened to you.

Never came across any false identities luckily.