ONTD

4:09 pm - 11/14/2012

MTV’s ‘Catfish’ TV Show Succeeds Where The Film Failed

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Sometimes a TV show really can be better than the film from whence it came. 
In 2010, Nev Shulman debuted his documentary, Catfish, which followed his journey to meet the girl he fell in love with on Facebook. Despite the marketing campaign for the film, which positioned it as some horror flick with a dangerous or paranormal twist, Shulman’s journey (SPOILER ALERT!) ended in a farmhouse with a middle-aged mother and wife who’d been creating false Facebook personas to stave off her own loneliness and boredom. It was an unexpected twist, for sure, but where audiences were expecting pure, radical shock and awe, we found our surprise coupled with something truly, deeply sad: a person whose life was so unlike the life they wanted that they felt the need to create another. When translated into a television show with a premise based up front on that emotional concept, the product is something that feels as if it has the momentum to move the discovery forward, instead of wallowing in the shock of the 180-degree turnaround. 

The first episode of Catfish: The TV Show, focuses on Sunny, a young woman who’s in an online relationship with a male model in L.A. … who also works at Chelsea Lately and writes for the show … and also writes cue cards? What an overachiever! In truth, as most viewers probably guessed from the premise of the show, this wonderful, magical Skype-allergic RJ guy is actually an 18 year-old girl named Chelsea who started the account as a means of revenge against someone who bullied her on Facebook. The lie started to consume her because she felt like an outcast in real life, and her online model persona afforded her the means to make easy connections with other girls online as she explored her bisexuality. And that’s where the show truly manages to surpass its cinematic source material. 

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Anyone ever been in an online relationship and found out that everything the other person told them was a lie?



(Not me. An interesting lesbian online dating horror story.) 


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distant_lines 14th-Nov-2012 10:30 pm (UTC)
I've never dated anyone I met online, but I'm friends with a couple girls I met online during my OTH obsession days. haha
powerbottom 14th-Nov-2012 10:30 pm (UTC)
Totally random but I guess it's a bit on topic...? I downloaded that Scruff app during the summer 'cause I was bored and there were a bunch of crazies and just people doing really weird shit in their photos. Like posing with their iPads AND their Macbooks while holding their iPhones.

I also just had to take a screenshot of this one, I was rolling: http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mdhpy2xdYr1r10reao1_1280.png
smokesinatra 14th-Nov-2012 10:39 pm (UTC)
omfg I don't know what I was expecting when I clicked that BUT THAT WAS NOT IT
rewrittentime 14th-Nov-2012 10:59 pm (UTC)
omg that picture dear god
the earring sells the picture
powerbottom 14th-Nov-2012 11:00 pm (UTC)
This is someone that lives within 5 miles of me. This is why I'm a born again virgin.
gaybash 16th-Nov-2012 02:32 am (UTC)
I think I follow u on tumblr
saikaro_x 14th-Nov-2012 10:30 pm (UTC)
My brother worked on this show as a PA...he said that the directors were really cool and he said that the episode he worked on seemed pretty legit actually.
powerbottom 14th-Nov-2012 10:32 pm (UTC)
Are the two main guys on the show fucking? I was trying to figure that out the entire episode but I couldn't really get a feel for it.
saikaro_x 14th-Nov-2012 10:35 pm (UTC)
do you mean the guys in the picture in this post? idk...although my brother thought that yaniv might have been gay, but he wasn't out (he would talk about hooking up with celebrity chicks in LA lol).
kurtvonnegut 14th-Nov-2012 10:31 pm (UTC)
the only reason this stuff is even remotely interesting is that it's supposed to be real. when you take the reality out of the equation idg why people are supposed to care.
sweeetkiwi 14th-Nov-2012 10:31 pm (UTC)
I loved the film!

And last nights episode was awesome
Can't wait for the rest of the season
reidacted 14th-Nov-2012 10:33 pm (UTC)
The girl choosing to be friends with her faker at the end seemed off.

"Well, we've made it this far.. why not?"

Seriously? GTFO with that moral of the story lesson. She accused her of being a lesbian half the time just before & threw it around like some kind of insult. Whatev.


The model at the end was QT, though. You know Sunny is gonna leave her "new boyfriend" for that routine Friday chat he joked about.
jess_sayin 14th-Nov-2012 11:13 pm (UTC)
yea, that's when I checked out of this flop.
I am here for some friggin "Cheaters" style throw downs.
I want to see things lit on fire!
bbbitchface 16th-Nov-2012 02:10 am (UTC)
i fully expect someone to shout "I'm gonna baptize you, bitch!" whilst holding a fire extinguisher, epic Cheaters style.
heygrumpy 14th-Nov-2012 10:34 pm (UTC)
i feel like this would have been relevant if skype didn't exist, not so much now.
disko_tron 14th-Nov-2012 10:34 pm (UTC)
I'm too scared to post my picture on online dating sites. I'd be embarrassed if someone recognizes me. And I would definitely be scared or cynical to ever meet someone I met online. someone could just be trolling me.
distant_lines 14th-Nov-2012 10:35 pm (UTC)
I don't post my picture online at all, other than Facebook. I don't want people I don't completely know seeing pictures of me.
violue 14th-Nov-2012 10:44 pm (UTC)
ikr me too, luckily it's impossible to find a picture of what I look like irl



oh oops
pilotesse 14th-Nov-2012 11:05 pm (UTC)
Same here
squishinator 14th-Nov-2012 11:02 pm (UTC)
i was scared of that too (and it's happened before and was awk) but then you have to just think... so what? they are on that website too.
pilotesse 14th-Nov-2012 11:04 pm (UTC)
same
lil_creamsoda 14th-Nov-2012 11:37 pm (UTC)
it really isn't that deep. it's 2012. everything is done online.
whataboutdasha 15th-Nov-2012 01:49 am (UTC)
Someone recognized me on the streets once. So embarrassing bc in my okcupid pictures I looked nice and made up and irl I'm always kinda casual and that day was waaaaay casual for me lol
ugly_jacket 15th-Nov-2012 06:49 pm (UTC)
you can always lock your account down so that only registered users see your pics, so if you're on there that means they're on the dating site too. and really there's so much less stigma attached to it these days
squishinator 14th-Nov-2012 10:36 pm (UTC)
OMG that girl was so dumb. If you've never met the person and they claim to be a model, thats your first clue, dumbass.


I used to troll online all the time, and yeah, at 16 i'd have fake personas and shit. But not fake "relationships", never anything leaving the computer (no text/phone calls/etc). That's ridiculous. Sunny is naive is fuck for falling for it (and lol @ her sister's jealousy) and chubster is pathetic for doing it for 8 months.

IDK why she even gave out her address like id just stop answering the phone if she said she was coming...
distant_lines 14th-Nov-2012 10:42 pm (UTC)
Yeah, like I feel like when you're younger it's just a teenager thing to do fake stuff like that. You're bored at 16 haha. I never gave my info out though to try and have relationships with people.
squishinator 14th-Nov-2012 11:03 pm (UTC)
yeah i would just frequent the same chatrooms and make up a fake persona. I mean, it kind of went on for a while with the same people (now that i think of it though i was more like 14 i think?) but like...yeah, never any irl info or anything crazy. I was just bored haha
skonka 14th-Nov-2012 10:36 pm (UTC)
I am in an abusive online relationship with at least 6 ONTDers.
reidacted 14th-Nov-2012 10:41 pm (UTC)
lmfao
lovemee12 15th-Nov-2012 06:00 am (UTC)
Lol "at least 6" is cracking me up for some reason
fionaapple 17th-Nov-2012 02:50 pm (UTC)
Love you too, babe.
anna_is_macabre 14th-Nov-2012 10:39 pm (UTC)
From 2007-2009 me, and a large group of people online, became friends with this 'guy'. He lived in Canada, was into death metal, was an overall sarcastic douche bag. But he was incredibly charismatic, and even though he hated the band that we all loved (we all met and talked on a band's fan message board) we all became good friends. I was more of an acquaintance, but my good friend was one of his new best friends so I got to hear a lot of inside shit. Suddenly everyone was emailing him, IMing him, sending packages to him (he would send back REALLY nice things. He bought my friend her iphone, another person a laptop), and generally accepting him as a new close friend.

Well...I get a phone call from my close friend saying "I don't think he's what he says he is". This is after her and this guy have basically entered a long distance relationship. So, through our investigative ~skillz~ we realize all of this photos of him are taken from someone else. Some of the photos don't match up to others, some are obviously photoshopped. So, it turns out that the "guy" is a girl. She does live in Canada, but she made a lot of shit up and led people on for years. It kind of devastated the group of friends (I wasn't really friends with most of them at this point). Some of the people have tried to maintain a relationship with her, but others were so disgusted that they've cut all contact with her.

Looking back, it's CRAZY the way shit went down. I'm omitting a ton of details in case anyone who was involved with it reads this... but the situation is so much like "Catfish" in so many ways.
skonka 14th-Nov-2012 10:41 pm (UTC)
Great avatar, great comment, great username. You're just great.
reidacted 14th-Nov-2012 10:42 pm (UTC)
Laptops and iphones, though? Sign me up, tbh.
anna_is_macabre 14th-Nov-2012 10:51 pm (UTC)
I know! My friend kept the iphone (of course). Actually, the Canadian girl tried to give my friend a laptop AND the iphone (before my friend found everything out), but my friend felt uncomfortable accepting so many expensive gifts.
koala_d 15th-Nov-2012 07:53 pm (UTC)
Not to creep you out but this sounds like something my former high school friend would have done. In fact it sounds so much like her :/
She was a pathological liar.
kimberlli_jv 14th-Nov-2012 10:42 pm (UTC)
IDGAF, I loved the fake ass movie and I like the show. He definitely knows the true identity of the people beforehand, and fakes it once he's with the person who's confronting them. I can't wait for next week's stripper episode because I'm pretty sure the guy might be doing gay porn (or at least that's where my mind went from the promo.)
violue 14th-Nov-2012 10:42 pm (UTC)
I used to have internet boyfriends, but that was all a decade + ago (jesus fucking christ I'm so fucking old)

idk whether they lied to me or not... except for the last one, because we're FB friends now and apparently some random story he told me once was a lie and he felt like an ass that I believed it(HE SHOULD)... but I ain't mad. We talk sometimes and we're fake-facebook-engaged and joke about said fake engagement randomly.


and then there was that whole thing with my guild leader in WoW pretending to be a girl for a year but we weren't in any sort of online romantic relationship. It's been over a month and I'm finally not having to remind myself that he isn't a redheaded 20 something year old girl that loves bunnies when we talk. (He's a black haired 30 year old guy that loves bunnies)... although I was paranoid as fuck for quite a while after he told me the truth because well for all I know all of THAT is a lie too. But his 'actual' facebook has way more idk details and personal things than the fake one ever did.
reidacted 14th-Nov-2012 10:43 pm (UTC)
I think I remember you talking about the WoW situation in a FFA.
violue 14th-Nov-2012 10:46 pm (UTC)
THE BETRAYAAAAAL
__yourlovely 14th-Nov-2012 10:42 pm (UTC)
I'm kind of confused about if this is real or not because I remember when they started casting for it and they were looking for the people that wanted to come out as being fakers, not the other way around. Also who doesn't skype with people before getting really serious about a relationship? Maybe before Skype existed, but now, I don't know why you wouldn't.


Also I've never been in a relationship with someone I've met online but I've made a really good friend from Omegle and my favorite youtuber met her BF from Omegle.
reidacted 14th-Nov-2012 10:44 pm (UTC)
People from Omegle are always bouncing out on me.

My longest convo on record has got to be under 10 seconds.
__yourlovely 14th-Nov-2012 10:50 pm (UTC)
I met my friend right when the site started, 3 years ago? It has changed a lot since then. It was way easier to talk to people back then from my experience.
warriorholmes 14th-Nov-2012 11:35 pm (UTC)
Who's the youtuber?

I had a friend that met his ex-gf on chat roulette or omegle idk which one. The one with webcams?
sugary_placenta 16th-Nov-2012 07:22 am (UTC)
i swear i met my soul mate on omegle and the shit disconnected after 19 mintues before we could even exchange AIMs.

Edited at 2012-11-16 07:24 am (UTC)
kenzainfluenza 14th-Nov-2012 10:44 pm (UTC)
LOOOL! at that stupid bitch thinking RJ King would be online dating her ass.

Edited at 2012-11-14 10:44 pm (UTC)
reidacted 14th-Nov-2012 10:45 pm (UTC)
So lucky that she got to skype w/ him at the end, tho.


I'm still trying to figure out why she didn't just google him properly, though.
kenzainfluenza 14th-Nov-2012 10:54 pm (UTC)
prob cause the fake name was Jamison King not RJ King. and she was also so naiiiiiivvvee and hopeful that a gorgeous guy like that would be into her that she lived in her denial bubble for 8 months.
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