The documentary film Catfish directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman is about a young guy Nev who is deceived by a woman Angela. Nev starts out his friendship with Angela’s daughter, Abby who supposedly is a very talented painter. Over time Nev grows closer to Angela’s family and starts speaking to Abby’s “half sister” Megan, who overtime Nev starts falling for her. Its been more than 8 months and Nev’s brother insist he find out more about who he has been speaking to for so long.
Nev, his brother Ariel and Henry head out to see for themselves who this family really is. They go to Megan’s house which turns out to be fake and no one is staying there, then they check Abby’s gallery which also turns out to be a lie. Nev at this point is very hurt and emotional about whats going to come next. Finally Nev meets Abby’s mother Angela who does not look anything what she showed herself as, Abby is not home neither is Megan or her brother. As Nev conversations with Angela she lies to him she has cancer and she is getting chemotherapy.
Angela had been lying to Nev for over 8 months, that’s long enough for a mother ready to receive her baby. Angela hid herself behind multiple face book profiles and lied consistently about herself and her family. As the truth unfolded right before Nev’s eyes he was overwhelmed with pain and still he handled the situation maturely he spoke and cleared things out with Angela and even though he forgave her quicker than it took to make the relationship, Nev was so hurt with that situation, who knows how he might feel about getting into another relationship.
The current generation is exposed to technology my parents were not even familiar with. Everyone has a social media account such as Face book, Instagram, and so on. People can deceive others with more ease because they can choose how they want to be viewed. This messes up the real interaction humans were made to have, this is anything but natural and the more technology one is exposed to the more dependent one becomes on it. Nev was fooled easily because the pictures Angela used were of an actual person and the multiple social media accounts she made to make the illusion of her pretend selves. She was a master at fabrication, if a normal person can do that than anyone can.
Online there is no way to prove authenticity, the social media sites don’t ask for personal info like a persons social security or state identification number. People can be anyone they want to be online, projecting identities of someone who they are not. There should be a law to stop people from creating fake identities, if impersonating a cop, a teacher is illegal than impersonating another human should be too. Social media to myself is considered a synthetic interaction, just seems fake, i would rather have the real natural human interaction with anyone I meet.
