Everyone at some point or another has catfished,
whether it’s deceiving an exciting life through our profile bios or using the
wide range of filters on Snapchat. We use the anonymity of the internet to hide
insecurities such as being overweight, acne and birth defects in order to fit
in with society's idea of beauty. This form of catfishing isn’t to manipulate
or scam but rather to appear more attractive or interesting to gain more
popularity on social media; to look our Sunday best, have all the right angles,
always on our “Good side” and constantly putting our best foot forward to
portray our best self.
We edit our pictures using apps or filters to
make ourselves look better and even “un-tag” ourselves from pictures that we
believe we don’t look good in; but is this catfishing? We believe it is; it’s
fit the definition of luring people in by means of a fake online profile.
(https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/catfish) Research shows more
teens are using social media to use as a platform to quantify themselves, this
is what leads to internet addiction. These people who catfish base their
popularity off of the amount of followers they have and how many likes they
receive on their pictures. They soon become addicted to the attention which can
result in them finding new ways to catfish to keep increasing their popularity.
[1]
7 in 10 girls have self esteem issues where they
believe their performance in school, relationships and looks are not good
enough.[2] Social media acts as a
gateway to become someone better but also acts as influencer that creates these
self esteem issues within teens. Teenage girls
are reportedly “more afraid of gaining weight than getting cancer, losing their
parents, or nuclear war.”[3] This
is caused by many factors with false advertising being one, where photoshop is
used to remove flaws creating an almost unrealistic image. The media is making
young girls fear curves, their height, stretch marks and cellulite. This fear
leads them to using their own catfishing techniques to become someone else,
however, it’s not only false advertising that motivates them. People they know
and friends as well who also edit their own profiles make them conform.
Even if unintentionally done,
everyone seems to do some form of lying on online profiles; leaving out
information about themselves, portraying a “perfect” life is simply deceiving
and false. Although one may not want to admit it or have never really thought
about it before, falsity on our online profiles is inevitable. While writing
this blog, thinking about our own profiles, we realize that even we have
performed some type of catfishing; editing our profile pictures to portray a
false-self or editing our information to exclude unflattering characteristics.
Therefore, we believe everyone does portray a fake self online to some degree.
Where this crosses into catfishing is when you intentionally create a false
profile using other people’s information or photographs to lure others into a
relationship of some type, either romantically or friendly.
[1] By Hakala, Kate, 2014 : We’re All Catfish: The
Plight of Staying “IRL” in the Digital Age, Retrieved by:
http://www.nerve.com/books/were-all-catfish-the-plight-of-staying-irl-in-the-digital-age
[2]
By Mchugh, Molly, 2013: 11 Facts About Teens,
Retrieved by: http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/its-catfishing-season-how-to-tell-lovers-from-liars-online-and-more/#ixzz4YiiGJdL9
[3] By Vaynshteyn, Gina, 2014: Why Photoshop is More Deadly Than you
Thought, Retrieved by: http://hellogiggles.com/photoshop-deadly-thought/
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