How to Discover a Catfish

If you’re a fan of social media and aren’t living under a rock, then there is no way you have not yet heard about the new MTV series Catfish. The show stars Nev Schulman as he follows people who are in online relationships but have not yet met their significant other on the other side of the computer screen. To give you a quick lowdown, the show was created based off the movie Catfish, when Nev himself was in an online relationship and destined to meet his model girlfriend Megan. Nev and two of his buddies end up taking a road trip to find where Megan lives and uncover the truth. The truth resulted in “Megan” being a 50-something year old Angela who obviously did not resemble the proclaimed model, Megan.

I have been closely following the television show and although I do feel sorry for the people who find out their significant others are not who they say they are, I can’t help but notice the obvious signs. Maybe they asked for it or maybe they were easy targets. Either way, here are a few tips on how to discover if someone who are talking to online is a *catfish!

*The term ‘catfish’ comes from the original movie when Angela’s real husband relayed this story: When live cod were shipped to Asia from North America, the fish’s inactivity in their tanks resulted in mushy flesh in the Asian markets. Eventually, the fishermen discovered that putting catfish in the tanks with the cod kept them active. Vince felt that people like Angela are catfish, who keep other people active in life.

1. Don’t respond to friend requests you don’t know. Many people accept every friend request they receive or worse, they accept only the people they find attractive. Tip: Many catfish out there appear to be very attractive in order to pull their victims in! If you don’t know them, simply send them a message and ask where you might know them from.

2. Check out their profile. If they happen to be a model, a cue card writer for the Chelsea Handler Show and are taking online classes to be an anesthesiologist, chances are they’re just too good to be true. Take it from Sunny, who fell in love with the man of her dreams who had that exact occupation on episode 1.

3. The wall says it all. Do they have a Facebook wall with actual people who have written on it? Many times, catfish will add a ton of random people to appear as if they are real. In reality, all of their friends are just random people who accepted them as a friend. If the only posts say things such as “thanks for the friend add,” you can bet these Facebook friends aren’t real friends.

4. Reverse Google Image. Many of you may not be aware of this fun little Google feature but you can in fact, upload an image to Google and find out other places on the web where the picture is located. This comes in handy if your potential catfish’s photo looks professionally taken.

5. Google, Bing, Yahoo. If you aren’t going to listen to my first tip of advice and this person starts talking to you, their fate truly lies in their Google results. Here you can find news stories, blogs, their LinkedIn profile, maybe even police records- that is if they even EXIST. Everyone leaves a virtual paper trail so if nothing comes up, start getting suspicious!

The images below show the person the catfish was claiming to be on the left and the person they are in real life on the right.