Before I watched the movie, a catfish to me was just another edible fish. Even after watching the movie, it still is. But the movie made me think about the role of a catfish--something that brings a change to our world. Catfish is a documentary based movie about the main character Nev Schulman who is a young New York photographer. The movie started by introducing Nev’s new life with Abby, a 8 year old artist. She drew pictures of Nev’s photo and sent them to Nev. They became friends and they were connected by Facebook. Then, Nev started to send friend requests to Abby’s family. He talked and chated with Abby’s mom Angela and her half-sister Megan Faccio. They lived far away, but they communicated through an online social network: Facebook. As time passed, they became more and more friendly and Abby still sent pictures of Nev’s photos back to Nev. However, even though they communicated online, they never met each other because of the far distance. Later, Nev finds out that something is wrong and goes to Angela’s house. There he finds out the truth. Megan, his love, never existed. Rather it was all made up by Angela who lived with two disabled children.
The plot of the movie was quite dramatic and unrealistic. It was hard to believe all of the facts that movie gave to me, even though it was a documentary movie. The idea that you can communicate with someone for so long and be fooled seemed unrealistic and somehow fabricated in order to create an interesting plot. When I saw the part where the truth about Megan was revealed, I was very shocked. The sudden change was fun but it also brought me to think about my own experience related to this movie. A few months ago, some 16th wavers made account of fake 17th waver account through facebook for fun. They used this account to approach to another 17th wavers and 16th wavers who didn’t know this fact. I was one of 16th wavers who didn’t know, too. When I knew the fact, I was shocked like when I saw the “Catfish.” At the end of the movie, Angela’s husband gave a new meaning to the catfish. As I mentioned earlier, Angela’s husband said that the role of a catfish is bringing a change to current world, and he said that Angela acted as a catfish: new striking shock to current world. However, I thought that facebook itself is a catfish to a world. If there was no facebook, it would be impossible to make fake account of fake person. However, because there is a revolutionary online social network, facebook, these incidences exist.
Some people say that this aspect of facebook destroys the relationship between people. It may seem like a destruction of human relationships, but it could also be a change. Interacting people with false identities through the web can be criticized as being false relationships, but at the same time couldn’t it be just a new paradigm? Through facebook, or other online social networks, people are able to communicate with so many more people around the world. This brings, perhaps not the closest relationship, but diversity to our social network. Many times, drastic developments or changes are considered bad or inhumane. It is also the same for the case of facebook. The catfish in this movie may be the wife, but I think that the real catfish of our world is the new paradigm of social relationships brought by facebook.
Good reflection. I like that you include your own experience while discussing the movie (a good mix of both elements). I also agree with you about the catfish thing. People who say "the sky is falling" when it comes to trusting online relationships perhaps think too much. It's good to be cautious but the benefits outweigh the risks. Online communication will never replace offline interaction, though it has increased drastically. Good writing. Good clean sentences.
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