Thursday, April 16, 2015
Web of Deception
"Catfish" is about a young New Yorker named Nev who fell in love on Facebook with the "girl of his dreams." However, this dream quickly became a nightmare for Nev because he fell into a giant web of lies. It all started when he was contacted by Abby, a 8 year old artist who wanted permission to paint a photograph of his that she saw in the newspaper. He of course agreed and was pleased with the finished product. Soon after, he began talking to Abby's mother Angela and became particularly friendly with Angela's older daughter, Megan. Nev and Megan began talking all the time both on facebook and through constant texts and phone calls. He quickly fell for Megan, as they discovered how much they had in common. They were both photographers, and Megan was a singer and would post original songs by her and her mother on facebook- or so he thought. Nev asked her to sing "Tennessee Stud" by Johnny Cash and within 30 minutes she sent him her version of it. It was good, too good. Nev and his friends looked up covers of the same song to compare her amazing version to other professionals. It turns out that they found the exact version of the song on YouTube that Megan claimed to be hers. Even worse, they looked up other songs that she had previously posted, and they were directly from other artists. "Tennessee Stud" had indeed been the big reveal of an even bigger web of deception. The realization that this 7 month relationship was a complete sham was devastating, but he and his friends were determined to get to the bottom of it. They visited Megan's home and met Angela who looked very different than her Facebook photos. Abby was real, however she wasn't the talented artist, Angela was the artist. After an awkward day of still trying to keep her cover and lying, Angela (who is middle aged and married) finally admitted that she had been behind the whole hoax. She was pretending to be Megan the whole time, and had created over 15 fake facebook profiles all trying to maintain Megan's fake image. All photos and songs were stolen and essentially everything was a lie. This is in no way justifiable, and I feel no pity for this women or people like this. It is sick and incredibly twisted.
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I agree that this whole situation is completely messed up. What I am wondering though is how this whole thing started. In the documentary, it states that "Abby" contacted Nev and asked if she could paint the picture found in the newspaper. We find out later that Abby doesn't actually paint all that much, so it probably wasn't her who sent him that message. If it was Angela who sent the message pretending to be Abby, why did she have to pretend to be an 8 year old? I'm sure Nev would have still given permission for her to paint the picture if she wasn't a little girl. The fact that people feel the need to lie about so many little things is quite concerning, and it makes trusting people in today's society a difficult task.
ReplyDeleteWe must also look at Nev's intentions. Why did he ask for another photograph to be made instead of replying with a simple "Thank you". I obviously think the scam is preposterous and is morally wrong, but Nev is also partly guilty and acted as a catalyst to the scam.
ReplyDeleteIt is possible to develope a relationship with someone over the internet especially if both parties are pursuing it. Nev had every right to go and see because his heart was in it and he thought he had something, I believe that he couldn't believe that someone would do that to a person or he couldn't believe it was actually happening to him and once he saw for himself he had to get to the bottom of it but after all their pain they can laugh and laugh all the way to the bank. Angela was wrong without an excuse.
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