Being the Bait

Catfishing is becoming a trend on social media sites - as it is now easier than ever to engage in modes of deception online that include using fake photos, information, identities, etc. Due to the vast increase of web interactions over human ones, it is said to be more common for someone to be catfished by someone in the online dating community.

Online dating is comprised of mostly intimate chatting. Once you fall for someone's "personality" or their deceptive online persona, it's easier to believe that they are who they say they are. It may be a way of self-defense or due to a lack of self-esteem that people go to intensive lengths to be someone they aren't on the internet. Most common lies include information on weight, age, and income.

But, the catfishers have to get their photos from somewhere - stock photos are too obvious. We always focus on the catfisher and the catfishee but hardly ever do we imagine what it's like to be the middle-man in the situation; we don't imagine how it must feel to have your photos be used in hundreds of fake profiles across the internet.

Ellie Flynn has been in this position for the past decade. Her photos, tweets, and personal information have been redistributed all over the internet by people claiming to be her and talking to men using her as their alias. Often, boys will come up to her claiming to know her, to which she has to let them down and prove to them she wasn't the one speaking to them by showing her driver's license.

Ellie said it was just as distressing to be the used personality in the situation as it is to be fooled by the personality. She encounters people who claim to have been on the phone with her for the past two months and are in love. How could you even respond to someone when they tell you that?

Her friend, Chia (who also has had her photos and information used in fake profiles) says that the fake-Chia will message her asking real-Chia why she is pretending to be her. In Ellie's words, it's "utter fucking madness, and really, really confusing."