I've mentioned the"False Self" persona in past posts as same pertained to what many do to feel better about themselves when they don't believe themselves to be o.k. as they authentically are. Then just today I remembered the movie "Catfish" which came out several years ago...and the subsequent MTV cable television series based on it. If ever there was a way to describe how a "False Self" can work in the extreme, the practice of catfishing is it!
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term "catfishing", it pertains to individuals who use the internet to set up a false identity in order to "hook" unsuspecting prospects to "date" online. We all know about online dating and how that works; catfishing takes it to a whole different and dysfunctional level because one (and sometimes both!) parties involved are NOT who they claim to be. In the movie "Catfish", a young man from New York is led to believe that he is communicating online with a beautiful younger woman who is an artist living in northern Michigan. I don't want to give away the entire plot of the movie...but let's just say when he actually "meets" his online girlfriend, he gets the shock of a lifetime. Because of the wildly successful response to this movie, the television series was born. Watching the series, however, was extremely disturbing to me both personally and professionally speaking. It's one thing to "catfish" someone by claiming to be 20 years old when you are actually 30--and then use an online profile photo from when you were 20 years old to i.d. yourself; it's an entirely different matter when you claim to be a twenty-something african american male model who's into rap and lives in New York City who has his own Facebook page and fifty "friends" (using whatever random online photo(s) of strangers you choose to use to i.d. yourself and your various Facebook "friends"!!) when, in reality, you are a 16 year old caucasian lesbian living with your parents in the backwoods of Kentucky. Very disturbing indeed.
For those who are being catfished, I have to wonder how anyone could get or be involved with someone they never laid eyes on (in real life or via Skype at the very least!)....let alone for several months not to mention years. Yes, I said years. Who does that? Someone who, tragically, has a whole lot of issues around "fantasy-based fictions" with the hope that "One day..." One day what? You'll go on the Catfish t.v. show and find out you just wasted XX amount of months or years on someone who wasn't even a "real" person? How sad is that? Beyond sad in my book that's how much.
My greatest concern is how long it will take before practices like catfishing are considered "no big deal" because hey---whatever floats your boat! This is the logic that drives me up a proverbial wall. It is NOT o.k. to do whatever you want just because you feel like it...and/or because you can. Why? Because moral relativism just doesn't work that's why. We have passively accepted a tremendous amount of garbage as it is over the past 100 years. When I tell young people now how there "used" to be a time when people didn't go out in public unless they were dressed to the nines---they literally can't believe it. Yet I also know that I can't believe it these days when I go out in public and see "F**K CANCER" on someone's tee shirt in the mall...let alone "F**K YOU...let alone "F**K period. What the...? (I will not say it don't worry!) We got so much so wrong as a culture. But hey---when it's o.k. to do anything, then anything is o.k. right? Wrong!
The False Self persona is a great example of how what started out one way ended up a whole other way once everyone stopped paying attention to how it could explode into something quite common and monstrous (as an online "dating" practice!) at the same time. Yikes we're in trouble. Makes me wonder how much longer it's going to be before I start getting clients coming in who want to marry their dog---or their cat---or their neighbors. But that's another topic for another time.
As for me....I'm just glad I'm old enough "now" not to ever see how catfishin' will evolve over the next 50-odd years. Then again, I think I can already guess...
Until next time.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term "catfishing", it pertains to individuals who use the internet to set up a false identity in order to "hook" unsuspecting prospects to "date" online. We all know about online dating and how that works; catfishing takes it to a whole different and dysfunctional level because one (and sometimes both!) parties involved are NOT who they claim to be. In the movie "Catfish", a young man from New York is led to believe that he is communicating online with a beautiful younger woman who is an artist living in northern Michigan. I don't want to give away the entire plot of the movie...but let's just say when he actually "meets" his online girlfriend, he gets the shock of a lifetime. Because of the wildly successful response to this movie, the television series was born. Watching the series, however, was extremely disturbing to me both personally and professionally speaking. It's one thing to "catfish" someone by claiming to be 20 years old when you are actually 30--and then use an online profile photo from when you were 20 years old to i.d. yourself; it's an entirely different matter when you claim to be a twenty-something african american male model who's into rap and lives in New York City who has his own Facebook page and fifty "friends" (using whatever random online photo(s) of strangers you choose to use to i.d. yourself and your various Facebook "friends"!!) when, in reality, you are a 16 year old caucasian lesbian living with your parents in the backwoods of Kentucky. Very disturbing indeed.
For those who are being catfished, I have to wonder how anyone could get or be involved with someone they never laid eyes on (in real life or via Skype at the very least!)....let alone for several months not to mention years. Yes, I said years. Who does that? Someone who, tragically, has a whole lot of issues around "fantasy-based fictions" with the hope that "One day..." One day what? You'll go on the Catfish t.v. show and find out you just wasted XX amount of months or years on someone who wasn't even a "real" person? How sad is that? Beyond sad in my book that's how much.
My greatest concern is how long it will take before practices like catfishing are considered "no big deal" because hey---whatever floats your boat! This is the logic that drives me up a proverbial wall. It is NOT o.k. to do whatever you want just because you feel like it...and/or because you can. Why? Because moral relativism just doesn't work that's why. We have passively accepted a tremendous amount of garbage as it is over the past 100 years. When I tell young people now how there "used" to be a time when people didn't go out in public unless they were dressed to the nines---they literally can't believe it. Yet I also know that I can't believe it these days when I go out in public and see "F**K CANCER" on someone's tee shirt in the mall...let alone "F**K YOU...let alone "F**K period. What the...? (I will not say it don't worry!) We got so much so wrong as a culture. But hey---when it's o.k. to do anything, then anything is o.k. right? Wrong!
The False Self persona is a great example of how what started out one way ended up a whole other way once everyone stopped paying attention to how it could explode into something quite common and monstrous (as an online "dating" practice!) at the same time. Yikes we're in trouble. Makes me wonder how much longer it's going to be before I start getting clients coming in who want to marry their dog---or their cat---or their neighbors. But that's another topic for another time.
As for me....I'm just glad I'm old enough "now" not to ever see how catfishin' will evolve over the next 50-odd years. Then again, I think I can already guess...
Until next time.