11:47 pm - 03/15/2013
At this point, no one actually thinks they are watching reality when they’re watching a reality show.
As an earlier post pointed out, Catfish: The TV Show, unlike Catfish: The Movie, appears to be just another reality show that obfuscates the truth during production. Because whatever airs does not representing the events that actually took place.
Hollywood.com got the victims of the online Catfish to break whatever confidentiality agreement is in place and reveal just how the show is produced and just what lies are told during the broadcast.
To begin, an overview for those unfamiliar with the show: it’s about the pitfalls of online dating, taking credulous 20-somethings who know how to Skype but purportedly don’t know how to Facebook stalk or reverse look-up believing the lies told by an unknown paramour who represents themselves one way online and another in person. The show claims the lovelorn person contacts the hosts about their love interest with the request to reveal the truth and facilitate a meeting.
. . .
And according to Hollywood.com, that’s literally exactly what happens. The show is lying about lovelorn people making the approach. This is how it actually works: The show IS reverse-engineered, with producers putting out casting calls for Catfish who reveal themselves to producers and agree to meet the “victim” before filming ever takes place. The victim has no idea, about the show or the Catfish’s identity, and gets a call out of the blue asking if they’ve ever been deceived by online dating.
“You know how they said that [the catfishee] had reached out to them?” a cast member from the series (who spoke anonymously to protect their relationship with MTV) tells Hollywood.com. “I don’t know why they put that in there because it’s not even true. It was actually me that reached out to them.” Another cast member (this time a catfishee), felt betrayed by an episode and put it plainly: “Really, I’m just frustrated that people don’t know the whole story.”
Speaking with local news outlet WHAM ABC, catfishee Joe Sumeriski of Warsaw, New York corroborated a story many cast members have claimed: that he does not know how MTV and Catfish became aware of his Internet relationship. “They just called me out of the blue,” he explained. Sumeriski was right. Hollywood.com has confirmed his catfisher, Rose, was the one who contacted MTV.
In fact, after speaking with six of the stars of this season (covering six episodes of the series), we found that in every instance except one, the catfisher — not the catfishee, as the series claims — has been the one to contact MTV first. Either via a casting call, Craigslist post, or a mention on the MTV website itself, the catfisher has consistently been the one to initiate the process. One catfishee from the South says she and her catfisher hadn’t had contact for “a couple months” — until Catfish’s producers showed interest. “We dropped off [talking] for a couple months and then we got it started again … when someone reached out to MTV about me and [the catfisher’s online identity] talking,” she says. “[MTV producers] hit me up, but I didn’t reach out to them because I didn’t know anything about a new show.”
There are, of course, truthful elements to the show. Every Catfish subject told us the series’ hosts, Schulman and Joseph, are indeed kept in the dark about the true identities of the catfishers. Their Internet research into these people’s lives are, apparently, all authentic. But the crux on which the show is balanced — the initial contact between Schulman and the catfisher — is in fact a fabrication. Everyone involved has already agreed to an in-person meet up before production begins.
Naturally, this complicates how viewers watch the show. If the two parties have long agreed to meet in person, Schulman’s random selection of a catfishee by scrolling through his email no longer seems random. And his dramatic phone call to the catfisher suddenly isn’t so dramatic. Is the catfisher genuinely surprised when Schulman requests a meet-up on-camera? “Not really,” says one catfisher. “Because they told me they were going to do it before they actually did it.”
But there are more discrepancies. Several cast members say the timing of their stories were off, with one claiming the show represented her relationship as lasting one month, when she was really communicating with her online love interest for three months at the time of filming. And two interview subjects denied their relationships were ever romantic at all.
“Manufacturing a storyline is a disappointing reality of where reality TV has headed, unfortunately,” MTV alum, and Road Rules: Campus Crawl participant Sarah Greyson, says. That said, “story editors can only be as truthful to a story as the people they’re attempting to represent. So many people watch reality shows now. They manufacture their personalities in ways that might deem them ‘castable.’”
Source
People in other posts have asked how this show works, but really it's just an excuse for people to share their own catfish stories
How fake is Catfish???
At this point, no one actually thinks they are watching reality when they’re watching a reality show.
As an earlier post pointed out, Catfish: The TV Show, unlike Catfish: The Movie, appears to be just another reality show that obfuscates the truth during production. Because whatever airs does not representing the events that actually took place.
Hollywood.com got the victims of the online Catfish to break whatever confidentiality agreement is in place and reveal just how the show is produced and just what lies are told during the broadcast.
To begin, an overview for those unfamiliar with the show: it’s about the pitfalls of online dating, taking credulous 20-somethings who know how to Skype but purportedly don’t know how to Facebook stalk or reverse look-up believing the lies told by an unknown paramour who represents themselves one way online and another in person. The show claims the lovelorn person contacts the hosts about their love interest with the request to reveal the truth and facilitate a meeting.
. . .
And according to Hollywood.com, that’s literally exactly what happens. The show is lying about lovelorn people making the approach. This is how it actually works: The show IS reverse-engineered, with producers putting out casting calls for Catfish who reveal themselves to producers and agree to meet the “victim” before filming ever takes place. The victim has no idea, about the show or the Catfish’s identity, and gets a call out of the blue asking if they’ve ever been deceived by online dating.
“You know how they said that [the catfishee] had reached out to them?” a cast member from the series (who spoke anonymously to protect their relationship with MTV) tells Hollywood.com. “I don’t know why they put that in there because it’s not even true. It was actually me that reached out to them.” Another cast member (this time a catfishee), felt betrayed by an episode and put it plainly: “Really, I’m just frustrated that people don’t know the whole story.”
Speaking with local news outlet WHAM ABC, catfishee Joe Sumeriski of Warsaw, New York corroborated a story many cast members have claimed: that he does not know how MTV and Catfish became aware of his Internet relationship. “They just called me out of the blue,” he explained. Sumeriski was right. Hollywood.com has confirmed his catfisher, Rose, was the one who contacted MTV.
In fact, after speaking with six of the stars of this season (covering six episodes of the series), we found that in every instance except one, the catfisher — not the catfishee, as the series claims — has been the one to contact MTV first. Either via a casting call, Craigslist post, or a mention on the MTV website itself, the catfisher has consistently been the one to initiate the process. One catfishee from the South says she and her catfisher hadn’t had contact for “a couple months” — until Catfish’s producers showed interest. “We dropped off [talking] for a couple months and then we got it started again … when someone reached out to MTV about me and [the catfisher’s online identity] talking,” she says. “[MTV producers] hit me up, but I didn’t reach out to them because I didn’t know anything about a new show.”
There are, of course, truthful elements to the show. Every Catfish subject told us the series’ hosts, Schulman and Joseph, are indeed kept in the dark about the true identities of the catfishers. Their Internet research into these people’s lives are, apparently, all authentic. But the crux on which the show is balanced — the initial contact between Schulman and the catfisher — is in fact a fabrication. Everyone involved has already agreed to an in-person meet up before production begins.
Naturally, this complicates how viewers watch the show. If the two parties have long agreed to meet in person, Schulman’s random selection of a catfishee by scrolling through his email no longer seems random. And his dramatic phone call to the catfisher suddenly isn’t so dramatic. Is the catfisher genuinely surprised when Schulman requests a meet-up on-camera? “Not really,” says one catfisher. “Because they told me they were going to do it before they actually did it.”
But there are more discrepancies. Several cast members say the timing of their stories were off, with one claiming the show represented her relationship as lasting one month, when she was really communicating with her online love interest for three months at the time of filming. And two interview subjects denied their relationships were ever romantic at all.
“Manufacturing a storyline is a disappointing reality of where reality TV has headed, unfortunately,” MTV alum, and Road Rules: Campus Crawl participant Sarah Greyson, says. That said, “story editors can only be as truthful to a story as the people they’re attempting to represent. So many people watch reality shows now. They manufacture their personalities in ways that might deem them ‘castable.’”
Source
People in other posts have asked how this show works, but really it's just an excuse for people to share their own catfish stories
He claimed he was actually fired because they were racist against white people though. :-X
A while ago, after a good deal of bitching from my mother and his father, Al got off his ass and applied for a job at McDonald's because they were opening a new restaurant at the O'Hare Oasis and were looking for help. Keep in mind, Al hasn't worked in six months since he quit Crown before he got fired for telling a customer who was a child to go fuck themselves in the cunt and he hasn't made any attempt to look for a job either. Oh, he also flunked out of GED school for lying and not showing up. But anyway, he gets the job at McDonald's he trained for two days. Then he never really went back again. He kept, supposedly, calling them... asking for his schedule. Blah blah blah they had too many people. Blah blah blah oops they forgot about him. Oh Al was sick this week. Oops he overslept that week. Blah blah blah, yadda, yadda. Found out he said he was sick and needed a doctor's note to go back. He kept lying about going to the doctor's office. When his dad finally caught him in the lie and dragged him kicking and screaming, Al went to work -- for half a day -- and was fired the next.
However, my mom called his boss because she wanted to get the true story cause she knows Al is a pathological lying piece of shit. And this is what really happened.
Al went to work the first day for training. Apparently he gave them a lot of attitude and was kind of difficult to deal with. But the manager said really this is pretty typical for people that are just starting with their training there that are Al's age. So he trained for two hours and went home. Next day, Al comes in late and tells them that he has been in a major car accident. And he's not just limping, but he's dragging his leg behind him like a zombie. Now, Al rode the bus to work. And the bus was in a very very minor accident on the way to McDonald's. A car lost control of its breaks and hit the bus. Barely denting the car or the bus. And no one got hurt. Al refused medical treatment because he said there was in fact noting wrong with him -- which there wasn't. But when he got to work, of course, he had been in a "major car accident" and was faking this injury. So his boss sent him home because he didn't want to be held responsible if he was injured.
His boss calls him two days later and Al tells him he's still hurt very badly and can't go to work. His boss says ok. But when he's better to just have a doctor's note when he comes back.
His boss calls a week later -- these calls are all to Al's cell phone btw, that's the number Al gave him -- asking what's up. Al says he's better, but he totally forgot that he had to do a family thing and he's on vacation with his family and will be back in 5 to 6 days. We never went on a vacation. Boss says ok.
Calls a week later. Al says now the doctor is on vacation so he can't get a note.
Calls a week later. Al says that we moved and the note is in a box and he can't find the box. -- At this point he hasn't even gone to the doctor. He didn't go until a few days ago. Before, he said he went, but never had. He just pocketed the money and lied to us. My mom called the doctor's office and found this out. Of course, Al said the nurse was a lying bitch. But neither the doctor or the insurance company said there was any record of Al and then he finally admitted it. He didn't want to go because he didn't want to admit there was nothing wrong with his leg to begin with.
A week later is when the semi-intervention occurs and we get his ass somewhat into gear. Get him his fucking note and get him to go to work. For a day. At first he through a huge fit because they asked him to shave and clean up because he was really fucking grody. But eventually he calmed down and did it.
He was apparently pretty decent when the manager was there. But when he left, Al acted differently. He didn't know that he was being watched by shift supervisors. And he was lazy. He wasn't paying attention. He was telling people to fuck off. He was being rude. He was lying to people. Being a complete little incompetent fuck. The list goes on and on and on. Needless to say, fired. According to Al though they really fired him because they were racist against white people.
He proposed to his fiancee at my stepdad (his father) 's funeral in front of the casket and asked my mom if he could have her ring to give to his fiancee because my mom didn't need it anymore.
I was never a fan to begin with but now the fucker is dead to me.
Do you know why he does all these shitty things?
They are entertaining stories but it must suck to have to be involved in his various shenanigans.