9:53 pm - 01/30/2013
To some extent, we've all done it.
Catfish Lite: Don’t Pretend You’ve Never Lied Online
Lately, the concept of "catfishing" — luring someone into an online relationship by pretending to be someone that you're not — has been surrounded by its fair share of controversy, but how controversial is it in actuality? Believe it or not, a little controlled catfishing is something that plenty of the Instant Message generation has experimented with, even if we're unwilling to admit it. Really, who hasn't tried to escape their reality by pretending to be a 17-year-old varsity baseball player in an N*SYNC chat room every now and then?
This morning's Today Show featured a segment from Dr. Phil McGraw's upcoming interview with Ronaiah Tuiasosopo. Tuiasosopo, for those of you at home, is the 22-year-old man who became a household name after being exposed by Deadspin as the man behind Lennay Kekua, the fake dead girlfriend of Notre Dame football player Manti Te'o. Tuiasosopo, who used photos of a stranger to woo Te'o online, confessed to Dr. Phil that, while Lennay Kekua was a lie, all of "her" (his) feelings were very real.
McGraw tells Today:
Here we have a young man that fell deeply, romantically in love. I asked him straight up, "Was this a romantic relationship with you?" And he says yes. I said, "Are you then therefore gay?" And he said, "When you put it that way, yes." And then he caught himself and said, "I am confused."
( I still don't believe he was the voice on the voicemailCollapse )
Source
Lately, the concept of "catfishing" — luring someone into an online relationship by pretending to be someone that you're not — has been surrounded by its fair share of controversy, but how controversial is it in actuality? Believe it or not, a little controlled catfishing is something that plenty of the Instant Message generation has experimented with, even if we're unwilling to admit it. Really, who hasn't tried to escape their reality by pretending to be a 17-year-old varsity baseball player in an N*SYNC chat room every now and then?
This morning's Today Show featured a segment from Dr. Phil McGraw's upcoming interview with Ronaiah Tuiasosopo. Tuiasosopo, for those of you at home, is the 22-year-old man who became a household name after being exposed by Deadspin as the man behind Lennay Kekua, the fake dead girlfriend of Notre Dame football player Manti Te'o. Tuiasosopo, who used photos of a stranger to woo Te'o online, confessed to Dr. Phil that, while Lennay Kekua was a lie, all of "her" (his) feelings were very real.
McGraw tells Today:
Here we have a young man that fell deeply, romantically in love. I asked him straight up, "Was this a romantic relationship with you?" And he says yes. I said, "Are you then therefore gay?" And he said, "When you put it that way, yes." And then he caught himself and said, "I am confused."
( I still don't believe he was the voice on the voicemailCollapse )
Source
I lied about my age on Neopets when I was like 10 so I could get messages.
I turned my computer off so fast and then was too scared to turn it on for days
I don't remember when I actually turned it back on again lol.
Plus I was pissed I lost the combo I was having with this cute guy.
Bitch it's 2013 if this was 1993 I'd understand.
I've been so obsessed with catfish stories lately. Like the psychology behind what drives people to do it and also why people end up believing them.
Speaking of ~lying on the internet... a friend and I heard about that Ashley Madison cheating website when we were in high school, several years ago. We wanted to troll all of the desperate men on there, so we made a profile and said we were into the most ridiculous fetishes on there. We went on a Shakira website and got some of her old photos from when she was a teenager and posted them on the site as if it was up. No one ever realized it was her. We'd set up meetings and dates with guys and bail out at the last minute when they said they were leaving to come meet us. We actually recognized one of the guys that messaged us. He's been working at the local Renaissance Fair for 10+ years and is in one of the popular acts there. He told us about his wife never put out and all of this other gross stuff. Every time I go to the Renaissance Festival and see him there, I think about what a creeper he is.
She was always alive and well. Don't think I've actually lied online though. I don't really have a reason to.
Edited at 2013-01-31 06:28 am (UTC)