The Show That Always Has Me Saying "You Gotta Be Kidding Me..."

Ok, you've caught me! Yeah, I've watched almost every episode for the past 8 years, and yeah sure, these days I sit down in front of the tv every week and watch new episodes with my sister while eating corn cakes... but can you really blame me? The show is absolutely ridiculous, but it is the right kind of ridiculous. I mean, almost every time I watch a new episode I'm thinking to myself

they can't be serious!

And yet, somehow they are serious and maybe that's why I seriously can not stop watching Catfish; the TV Show.

You would think I would get tired of the same narrative: Person A meets Person B online, falls in love with them, and talks to them for approximately 2-9 years without ever video chatting or, in some cases, without even speaking with them on the phone. Person A or family/ friends of Person A becomes suspicious and reaches out to the show to help them finally meet the "love of their life". And after the show hosts do some simple investigating, 9 times out of 10, we find out that Person B is not at all the fantasy that Person A has created in their head, but is instead just a catfish.

Yes, the same tired story over and over with different people broadcasted for years and years and somehow, I am still so intrigued by the show. Maybe that’s because...

I'm still confused on how people don't understand that they are being lied to and being fed a fantasy.

I completely understand being a hopeless romantic and wanting to believe in the best-case scenario, but I can only understand it to a certain degree. Speaking to someone online for up to a decade without ever hearing their voice or seeing them live and in action, yet still creating fantasies of major commitments like moving in together, starting a family, or being together forever reveals something very interesting about human nature.

Perhaps it points to the human's inclination to try and escape reality when their reality isn't necessarily ideal. And it highlights how some people would just prefer to live in a fantasy than deal with something more real that has the potential to hurt them. Usually, we see that Person A has had problems with connecting in the past or was constantly heartbroken and this caused them to pursue something that felt safer for them.

Either way, it is interesting to see the lengths some people would go to protect a fantasy.

The rare times when Person B is actually who they say they are shocks me every time.

In most cases, person B is not who they say they are. But when they are, it changes the whole dynamic of the show. Literally, the whole tone of the show shifts, and I become interested in why Person B was so closed off to the point of making Person A so suspicious in the first place.

Person B NOT being a catfish is rare but it is often very surprising and sweet to see two people who care about one another finally get to meet each other. The episodes where the suspected catfish isn't a catfish are probably my favorite episodes because of how shocking and rare they are.

In one of the latest episodes, a guy named Will had an online relationship with a cosplaying girl named, Cherry. Will's friend suspected that his cosplaying love interest, Cherry, was a catfish. But it turned out that Cherry was exactly who she said she was.

It was a very sweet and refreshing episode and is easily one of my favorites.

There are very creepy and disturbing cases.

Regardless of the repetitiveness of the show most times, some episodes are just downright creepy, unsettling, and disturbing. After these episodes, I am usually left speechless with my mouth opened, wondering what the hell I just watched. There are so many questions that the hour long episode just couldn’t answer and so I’m usually left feeling unfulfilled and acutely disturbed.

One episode in particular comes to mind when I think of creepy and disturbing catfish episodes and it just so happens to be the latest episode titled Paul and Caitea.

This was a very disturbing episode for many reasons but the biggest reason is that the Caitea character was actually a real person. Except her name is actually Katy and she wasn’t the one that was speaking to Paul for years,

her mother was.

Yes, Katy’s mother posed as her and catfished many young boys for several years.

The episode was absolutely bananas and I still have so many questions after watching it.

I can’t believe the sheer gall and audacity of some people.

And lastly, the thing that really compels me to continue to tune in after all these years is the utter boldness and shamelessness of certain Catfishers.

You have your re-offenders; the people who were caught catfishing in the past, swore they would turn over a new leaf, and then you see them in another episode in all their wonderful, cat-fishing glory. It’s honestly incredible.

There are the cat-fishers who pretend to be major celebrities and surprisingly get pretty far with their ridiculous charade.

To this day, I have a reoccurring thought about the episode titled Shakina and Breezy, where a woman believed she was in a relationship with Chris Brown. The episode was so off-putting, I seriously still don’t know what to think of it.

And then there are the people who simply have no remorse after they’re caught. They seemingly don’t care about the feelings of person A, couldn’t care less about all of the time (and sometimes money wasted) and they sometimes even say that they’d catfish others in the future. It’s completely out of line and I just can’t believe the audacity of some of those people.

So yeah, the show is insane. And even though I don’t shout it from the rooftops, I find the show very entertaining and often binge-watch episodes when I’m just lazily lounging around. And sure, the episodes can become a bit repetitive at times yet I still find myself in front of the tv screen, waiting for something ridiculous to occur so that I can say my obligatory one liner

you gotta be kidding me!