Catfish

Catfish is a film that explores the deception that takes place in the social world of facebook. Nev is a filmmaker who meets Meghan on facebook. They both initially learn a lot about each other from reading the bios and information sections of their facebook profiles. They learn they have a lot in common. Nev learns that Meghans younger sister paints and she begins to send him her artwork. From there the entire family becomes involved in Nevs life. He becomes from with Megans friends and family on facebook, at one point calling them the “Facebook Family” and they begin to text and call each other on a regular basis. Soon Nev wants to physically be with Meghan so he decides to surprise her with a visit. This is when the twist in the movie happens. Without going into too much detail we find out that in fact the entire facebook identity of Meghan and 12 of her mutual friends are all false. The mother of Meghan (who is a real person) has created an entire cyber life for herself, her child and random people she had met/created.

The crazy thing about this movie is the mother. She had crated entire profiles for people she had created in her head. Some of the profiles she created were from people she knew in her hometown. Everyone had profiles, pictures, videos, they undated statuses and had mutual friends with one another. As the audience meets all the facebook people that Nev comes into contact with, they begin to feel comfortable and safe with what facebook if telling them. The audience is at ease with the interaction that goes on between Nev and the “facebook family”. In reality though we find out it is all a deception. It is scary to think about what people can do with facebook. If entire identities can be fabricated in the cyber then how are we to know what is truth. Overall I think that the movie Catfish was very effective in showing the deception and fabrication that can happen in social networks.