Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the adverse effects of online anonymity. While online anonymity is positively embraced by many of us, some have faced the dark side of it. Giving prominence to the concept of identity, I discuss the causes, effects and the results of one form of negative use of online anonymity, which is catfishing.

Keywords- catfishing, online anonymity, postmodern perspective, identity

Online anonymity has unarguably been one of the main reasons behind the widespread use of the internet. The number of different personalities an individual can express themselves as is endless. You can be whoever you wanted to be, however you wanted to be. The lack of consequences that followed only made it even more appealing. However, with all good comes equal bad. While the freedom of expression was originally meant for good, it wasn’t long before it was misused. In this paper I would like to discuss the argument, while online anonymity has been a great aid to many of us, it has also given rise to a not-so-good use of it as well, giving birth to catfishing.

According to Lovelock (2017), the definition of catfishing is essentially the act of using a “fake profile” with a bogus identity that is not of the user, used predominantly for malicious acts on social media. Alternate definitions have described catfishing as “the current internet trend of creating and portraying complex fictional identities through online profiles” (Nolan, 2015, as cited in Lauckner et al., 2019). While the second definition is more generalized than the first one, they both agree that catfishing is done by bringing a non-existent being to life. Online impersonation goes hand in hand with catfishing. It can also be described as the stealing of another person’s identity without their consent and using it as your own.

The word ‘catfish’ first rose in popularity in 2010, with the movie “Catfish”, about how a young man named Nev Schulman fell in love with a girl online, only to find out the person on the other side of the screen wasn’t really the person he thought it was. It was later adopted into a TV series, which lead to the term to continue to rise in popularity (Heidi, 2013). This was the place where the word ‘catfish’ was assigned a new definition, aside from simply being a type of fish. The concept of catfishing was introduced to the general public when Manti Te’O, a popular linebacker from Notre-Dame, found out that his loving online girlfriend, who had supposedly died from leukemia, didn’t actually exist (Heidi, 2013).

It is worth mentioning, however, that both the movie and the TV series based on catfish don’t show the entire problem. In fact, I would argue that they were romanticizing the concept. While that would be a great attention grabber to increase the show’s ratings, they do feed the public a half-truth. The catfish and the victim live happily ever after? I think not.

 In this paper, instead of using the media version of catfishing as a case study, I’d like to put the spotlight on real victims who fell prey to the evil schemes of these evil-doers. Victims who, unfortunately, didn’t have a happily ever after.

While I do agree that some cases of catfishing can be a prank among friends or simply for the sake of a good laugh, which is often the case, catfishing doesn’t stop there. There have been many cases where people were cheated out of their money, blackmailed, sexually harassed, and even murdered. Some such cases are listed below.

Susannah Birch, a 15-year old girl who met an allegedly 17-year old boy named Richard on an online platform with whom she had a 12-year long relationship, was later found to be a 62-year old man. Upon confrontation by Susannah, who provided evidence of knowing who he really was, he began to exploit her using suicide threats (Dale, 2020). When the police were informed of the case, it was to her disappointment that she found that there was, in fact, no law that could prosecute the man. While this is a case from the early internet era, it is worth noting that even to date, there is no law that states that catfishing is entirely an unlawful act. While catfishing minors and making sexual advances on them is considered a crime that could put the offender in jail for up to 15 years, it is not necessarily the case for adult victims (Dale, 2020).

In 2013, Renae Marsden committed suicide on the same day of her break-up with her online boyfriend named Brayden. It was only after her death that it was found that Brayden was a fake identity created by Renae’s old friend, who then went on to be freed of all allegations.  “How can anybody put somebody else through mental torture on a grand scale and come out of it on the other end and not be accountable to the law?” were Renae’s father’s words following the predicament (Dale, 2020).

In 2017, “Carly’s Law” was made official after the namesake; Carly Ryan was murdered by an alleged teen musician she met online, who was actually a 50-year old man. She was killed when they met in real life, this time him posing as the boy’s father. Getting the law passed was not an easy task either. It was a ten-year long battle against the law for Carly Ryan’s mother, who wanted justice for her deceased daughter, as well as other children who might be falling prey to these petty schemes (Dale, 2020).

In 2019, a girl by the name Lydia Abdel-Malik was sentenced to serve a minimum of twenty-one months in jail with six charges of stalking after presenting herself as the celebrity Lincoln Lewis and luring women into thinking that they were romantically involved with the actor. One of her victims later took her own life due to PTSD, anxiety and depression caused due to the incident (Dale, 2020).

Another incident that needs to be brought to your notice is when a 26-year old man posed as a teenage girl on online chat rooms to talk with boys. How is this different from the other cases you may ask? Nearly 7 years later, he was charged with sexual abuse of over 300 boys spanning across three countries. He would request sensitive content from the victims and once received, he would threaten to release the images and videos to the internet. He even managed to meet a few of the poor victims in real life, and raped them. When he was caught, officials found over 16,000 videos of the victims on his computer (Iliana, 2018).

The above are only a handful of the many cases of catfishing that happen worldwide. Catfishing, while it might seem harmless on the surface, can have detrimental effects on the victims. If the simple idea of having an alternate persona online is taken into account, it seems completely risk-free in terms of the postmodern perspective. Since the postmodern concept of identity is considered to be the form of expression through actions and words, without a fixed structure, it is acceptable to say that a particular person with an alternate identity on the internet in how they really choose to express themselves. However, the problem arises when authenticity is questioned. Is the identity authentic? Is it really the way an individual chooses to express themselves while being genuine to their inner self? Or is it a hoax that they are using to lure in unsuspecting prey? While I do accept that the majority of the catfishing accounts might not be as bad as some of the examples I have provided, it is quite clear that catfishing could go to extremes beyond our expectations.

During my research, I also came across a couple of articles that talked about the milder reasons behind the temptation to catfish. Knafo (2021) argues that sometimes, the need to catfish doesn’t only stem from malicious intent, but rather from insecurities about themselves. When they feel like the world is not accommodating who they are in the real world, they seek acception through creating a fake identity online and portraying it as their own (Knafo, 2021).

This was the case with Ahamed. Born gay into a Muslim family, he didn’t feel accepted for who he was. Having failed to match with a guy he fancied on a dating app, his self-consciousness got the best of him, which compelled him to catfish. He replaced his own picture with a picture of his friend’s, which he obtained without consent, and managed to hit the goal that he had previously missed (Knafo, 2021).

Another such case was when a woman, yet to accept herself as a lesbian, catfished multiple other women under the guise of a man. In her words, “I became my fantasized self, the one who could pass through the world and love girls without reproach” (Madden, 2017, as cited by Knafo, 2021).

I agree that Catfishing can’t be limited to bad intentions. Living in a world that doesn’t accept you for your skin colour, ethnicity and sexual orientation could in turn lead to the person wanting to conform to the widely accepted ideals, thus choosing to catfish (Knafo, 2021). Yet, what is wrong is wrong. Ahamed may not have had any ill intentions, but he did take part in identity theft. The lady may have simply wanted to explore who she really was, yet she lied to people and led them on to believe a lie.

Yet, with so many cases of catfish running rampant on social media, why is it that there is rarely any coverage on it? Why did it take over seven years to bring a single catfish who ruined hundreds of lives to the face of justice?

One word- Anonymity.

The issue is, more often than not, the offender is out of reach. With an entire universe of advanced technology standing between the offender and the victim, it is almost impossible to find their true identity (Derzakarian, 2017). Although tracking their IP address might seem like a fool-proof method, it really isn’t. They could be using a VPN connection. They might even be educated in different ways to change IP addresses and their locations (Dale, 2020). Furthermore, the victims don’t have any information on the catfish. Everything is unknown. You would probably have more luck finding a needle in a stack of hay than tracking them down.

Is there any way for the victim to free themselves from this situation? If you are a minor, or are lucky enough to only fall for the trap of a mediocre catfish, you have a better chance of being served justice. When the law doesn’t fully cover the injustice occurred to you, all you can do is take extra precautions before you are a victim. Here are some ways you can take precautions.

If somebody seems “too good to be true”, chances are, they probably are. If they try to get you to sympathise with them by telling heartbreaking stories that were uncalled for, stay alert. A big red flag would be if their social media profile has very few pictures of them in groups. Always do a background check on people you meet online. If they seem sketchy, cutting contact is the best option. Reverse image searching to find the origins of images is also a great tip to remember (Greenburg, 2017). 

Catfishing has been a grave issue that has been around since the advent of the internet. As we develop further as a tech- savvy world, catfish will also develop new tactics to lure in their next prey. While I did manage to bring to light some of the bigger cases of catfishing, it is a much more complicated issue than what meets the eye. Catfish victims are not the only victims in these schemes. The people who had their identities stolen also fall into the same category. However, that’s another story for another time.

As I have mentioned above, catfish will be around for as long as the internet prevails. So, it is our responsibility to take precautions about these situations and fight for the victims who haven’t received justice. While we might not be able to create laws to support them, it is within our scope of possibility to raise awareness on the issue. Know the dangers that present themselves online, and learn to steer clear from them.

Reference List 

Dale, A. (2020). Catfishing: The lure of the law: Should catfishing be a crime? LSJ(67), 30-35.

Derzakarian, A. (2017). THE DARK SIDE OF SOCIAL MEDIA ROMANCE: CIVIL RECOURSE FOR CATFISH VICTIMS. Loyola of Los Angeles law review, 50(4), 741.

Greenberg, P. (2017). Cyberbullies go catfishing. State Legislatures, 43(6), 8.

Heidi, S. (2013). Where did ‘catfish’ come from?: How social media have fallen for it — hook, line, hashtag. Chicago tribune (1963).

Iliana, M. (2018). ‘Catfishing,’ Blackmail and Sexual Abuse in Norway: Foreign Desk. The New York times.

Knafo, D. (2021). Digital Desire and the Cyber Imposter: A Psychoanalytic Reflection on Catfishing. Psychoanalytic dialogues, 31(6), 728-743. https://doi.org/10.1080/10481885.2021.1976187

Lauckner, C., Truszczynski, N., Lambert, D., Kottamasu, V., Meherally, S., Schipani-McLaughlin, A. M., Taylor, E., & Hansen, N. (2019). “Catfishing,” cyberbullying, and coercion: An exploration of the risks associated with dating app use among rural sexual minority males. Journal of gay & lesbian mental health, 23(3), 289-306. https://doi.org/10.1080/19359705.2019.1587729

Lovelock, M. (2017). Catching a Catfish: Constructing the “Good” Social Media User in Reality Television. Television & new media, 18(3), 203-217. https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476416662709