Earlier this year, my friend Jamie freaked out and sent me a dozen screenshots of an Instagram profile that wasn’t hers, but looked everything like hers. She had been catfished by a mysterious and, frankly, rather dim human on the internet. It was even more unfortunate that he or she had created a profile on Tinder doing the same. Really disconcerting but amusing at the same time.
To catfish is to assume someone else’s identity online, most commonly to trick an unsuspecting person into falling in love with them.
Aaand the acclaimed docu-series that popularised this term in everyday conversation? It’s none other than Catfish by MTV, which returns this month with Season 5!
Nev Schulman and Max Joseph bring us on journeys to uncover the most incredulous online dating stories. In the first episode, concerned daughter, Shuntay, enlists the help of Nev and Max after her mother, Jeanette, begins talking about marriage and uprooting her family to be with a man who refuses to meet in person.
This premiering episode airs on 20 March, Sundays at 8pm (SG), 9pm (MY) and 22 March, Tuesdays at 11.30am (PH) on MTV.
While looking for teasers and snippets of past episodes, we came across a trailer for a 2010 movie called Catfish starring Nev as well – which explains the critical success of the TV series it inspired. Watch to know how it got us on the edge of our seats: