Catfishing

The creation of a fictitious online persona or fake identity, typically on a social networking platform, with the intent to deceive, most often to draw a victim into a fabricated online romantic relationship or to obtain illegal financial gain through fraud such as the pig butchering scam, or through sextortion; some perpetrators, called catfish, are instead motivated simply by a desire to feel more popular or to experiment with a different identity. Catfish typically use fake photographs and lie about their personal circumstances, often love bombing the victim early in the relationship while avoiding video calls or phone conversations that would let them be verified, giving an IP address inconsistent with their claimed location, repeatedly postponing an in-person meeting, and eventually requesting money while pressuring the victim to keep the relationship secret from friends and family. The term entered public use with the 2010 American documentary film Catfish, whose executive producer Nev Schulman was himself a victim of the practice; the metaphor draws on an older story about live catfish being shipped alongside cod to keep them active, and was popularized further by the MTV series Catfish: The TV Show, which has followed Schulman helping others investigate suspected catfishing since 2012. Public awareness of catfishing increased further after high-profile cases, including the 2013 exposure of University of Notre Dame football star Manti Te'o, and the 2013 case Zimmerman v. Board of Trustees of Ball State University marked the first legal use of the term in an American court.