Catfish. When I first saw the previews for the MTV docu-series, I told
myself that I wouldn’t watch it. There was no way in hell that I was going to
actually watch a show about fish. Then I heard the premise of the show:
introduce people who have been in online relationships to one another in
person. Still, I said that’s dumb, I won’t do it. Despite myself, I found
myself watching the very first episode. Then I watched the second, third, and
so on. What makes the show engrossing, I have no idea, especially since its
formula, thus far, has been the same: a lovesick man/woman reaches out to Nev
about how in love he/she is with somebody they’ve had an online affair with for
like a year or so, Nev Skypes them to talk about the person of their affection,
then he and Max, the camera guy, fly out to visit this person. The episode’s
central problem generally stems from some mysterious reason why the two people
haven’t met or even Skyped one another. The episode culminates in a disappointing
meeting, where the other person is not who they said they were. Later on the
two people meet and talk, but ultimately, the decision is that it’s not going
to work, that the affection they once shared is no longer the same.
At first I thought this was humorous. That a person could place another
person whom they never met or interacted with face-to-face on such a high pedestal,
and even go so far as to proclaim being in love, was comical and ridiculous to
me. I guess that’s the cynic in me. But what’s even more hilarious is how
utterly disappointed the person is when they discover that the face they always
attached to the person they were talking to isn’t actually theirs. It’s
hilarious for different reasons that are embedded in their paradoxes. The first
is that the unconditional love that they seem to share is actually proven to be
conditioned by the fact that their love suddenly disappears because their “love”
doesn’t have the same face. The second is that the “catfish,” the pretender,
actually believed that they had formed something genuine despite the fact that
they passed a face that doesn’t belong to them as their own, thus, creating a
foundation of deceit. But what is probably the most hilarious aspect of all of
this is the other person unintentionally involved—the one whose face has been
claimed by some self-conscious person in some obscure state like Montana.
Imagine channel surfing, passing by MTV and being startled by the image
of you on the screen. Next to it, however, is someone else’s name. Surprised,
almost to the point of stupidity, you run to the nearest mirror to make sure
that your face is actually YOUR face. Then you log on to your Facebook account to
check your pictures and holding your computer screen up next to your television,
you confirm that your Facebook profile picture has indeed been re-represented
as The Catfish.
Before Catfish, the movie and TV show, came along, I didn’t even know you
could search an image on Google. I knew you could find images from typing in keywords,
but taking an image and placing it into the Google search engine was something
that I just didn’t know about. I suspect that I didn’t know about it because I
never thought searching one’s own pictures was necessary. Until Catfish. I
mean, these people will take your entire album and stake claim on your entire
life. And even though they usually have some sad story about their low
self-esteem to accompany their explanation for their deceit, I can’t help but
see the humor in it. It’s so extreme. And disrespectful, not just to the other
person, but mostly to the person whose identity you’re stealing. They don’t
even know you. And what makes it even more comical is how extremely opposite
the stolen identity is from The Catfish. It’s polar opposite in every way,
excluding race; no white girl/guy ever perpetrates as a black girl/guy. But
everything else, including gender, is up for grabs.
As funny as it is, when my laughter subsides, I can’t help but wonder
if there’s some black girl/guy out there using my pictures as themselves. And
as easy as it would be to just Google search my image, I don’t want to do it.
What if I find out that somebody is pretending to own my face? What’s the
protocol for handling that? I mean, one could make the argument that my
searching my own images could be considered an exercise in vanity and
arrogance. So maybe it’s best that I just don’t know.
Yeah, I’ll just wait until I see my face on MTV.
No comments:
Post a Comment