Catfish Essay Final

Catfish Essay

Social Media has changed how we live today.  We can become friends with people who live on the opposite side of the globe, another country; anyone from anywhere remotely possible.  We can look at their pictures, check out they’re hobbies and it’s almost as if we actually know them; like really close friends.  But how do we know that these people are who they really say they are?  We don’t.  A lot of the time we don’t even question the fact that these people could be totally faking who they really are.

 Nev Schulman, a New York City photographer is just your typical average Joe.  He has a Facebook and has a couple hundred friends.  One day, to his surprise, he gets a painting in the mail from an 8 year old, named Abby.  This was a painting of a picture that Nev took a few months back.  Nev is surprised by her incredible talent.  They become friends on Facebook.  Nev continues to talk to Abby about her love for painting.  Who knows maybe Abby will be the next Da Vinci!  But does Nev really know anything about Abby?  He knows what he has read on Facebook and her photos.  But is Abby really who she says she is? 

Catfish is a documentary about the hard truth in Social Media.  In 2007, Catfish was created and produced by Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost. The documentary is full of deception, twists, lies, and conspiracies.  In this story Ariel follows his brother Nev’s eight in a half month journey of getting to know a family which he knew nothing about, except for what he read on Facebook.  Nev becomes intrigued with a talented young girl named Abby and her mother, Angela, and especially, Abby’s older sister, Meg.

Nowadays, none of take to heart the risks that are associated with getting to know someone online.  Unfortunately, Nev Schulman finds this out in a very difficult way.  He is lead on to believe that this amazing young painter Abby has this wonderful family and has an astonishing talent for painting; but is Abby really who she says she is?  Abby is an 8 year old who lives with her mother Angela and her father Vince.  She has a 19 year old sister named Meg.  Nev becomes “involved” with Meg.  Can you blame him?  From Meg’s pictures she is simply gorgeous.  Meg lives a few towns away from her family and owns a horse farm.  Nev and Meg begin a romantic relationship, without even meeting one another.  After some time, the things that Nev is being told slowly begin to not actually add up.  It all starts when Meg is on instant messaging with Nev and sends him a song that she covered.  When Nev realizes that the song is just someone else singing it, he begins to question what other lies Meg, and possibly her family could be telling him.  Nev and his colleagues go and make a surprise visit to Abby and her family.  Before they even show up, they go out and check out Meg’s farm, to find out if she even really lives where she says she lives.  Once they get there, they realize it is abandoned and up for sale; another thing that doesn’t add up.  Early in the morning Nev heads over to where Abby lives.  Angela, Abby’s mother, looks nothing like her pictures, and neither does her father Vince.  Nev now knows that his suspicions about this family are true; they are fake.  

Catfish unveils the hidden dark truth about the risks that Social Networks obtain.  Vince summarizes this very well by using an analogy about catfish.  When he was a fisherman, he would ship codfish over to China, but by the time he would get there, the fish would be spoiled.  He then tried placing catfish in with the cod, and they remained fresh by the time that they arrived in China.  Vince goes on to say that people are catfish too.  Catfish are people who keep you on your toes, ones who make you really think about what they say/do.  They keep things going and fresh.  So why did the producers name this movie catfish you might ask?  Abby’s family sent Nev on an adventure, with new twists and turns every day.

I really liked this movie.  It was very interesting and full of surprises.  I never would have thought that half of the things that happened in this movie were actually going to happen.  I would give this movie a 4 out of 5 star rating.  I would highly recommend this movie to, well, anyone.  This movie helps get out the real and somewhat shocking truth about how risky it is to believe what we read on our “friends” Facebook pages.