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Catfish:: Love Online

First it was the name of a movie, then an MTV reality series, and now the term is being used by the media reports to describe a hoax involving a Notre Dame Football player. The word, catfish, is quickly becoming known all across the nation.

However, this time catfish is not referring to the freshwater marine fish with whisker-like barbels. Instead according to urbandictionary.com, it is used to describe someone who pretends to be someone they are not on a social media network in order to create false identities, particularly to pursue deceptive online romances.

Catfish, the movie, was first released in 2010 and follows, Yaniv “Nev” Schulman, as he pursues an online relationship with a women he met via Facebook. The documentary is filmed by his brother and follows Nev in his relationship with a women who he believes is named Megan. Eventually Nev begins to become suspicious about who he has really been talking to. When Nev finally goes to meet Megan he is informed, by a woman named Angela, that Megan is not who he has been talking to. It turns out that all along Nev had been talking to Angela.

Following the release of his documentary, Nev received thousands of e-mails from people all across the country sharing their similar stories of online romance. After the outpouring of e-mails, Nev decided that he wanted to try and help these people found out if their online relationship was real or not.

On November 12, 2012 the series Catfish, was aired for the first time on MTV. Nev teamed up with MTV producers in order to create a reality tv show, which would allow him to help other people in online relationships. The first season of Catfish contains ten episodes all featuring different online romances. Nine of these episodes have aired so far, with over 2 million viewers tuning in to each episode. Out of the nine episodes that have aired so far, only one couple has actually remained together despite any lies that were told over the internet. MTV announced on December 19, 2012 that the series had been renewed for a second season.

Recently, however, the term Catfish has become known to sport’s fans. Notre Dame’s linebacker, Manti Te’o, claims he has been part of an internet hoax. Te’o claims he was led to believe that his online girlfriend,  Lennay Kekua, died of cancer on September 12th. It was not until December 6th, when he received a phone call saying she was still alive,  that Te’o discovered that Kekua was not dead. As a matter of fact, Kekua never even existed.

Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, used pictures of, Diane O’Meara, and then pretended to be Lennay Kekua and developed an online relationship with Te’o. While there is still much speculation about the whole story and how long Te’o knew that Kekua was not really dead, it still comes down to the fact that Te’o was deceived by a catfish.

As the term catfish appears more in the media, it is more than likely that others will begin to come forth with their stories of disappoint from online relationships. While, it is not always certain the person you are speaking with online will be a catfish it is always better to meet the person in order to ensure they are who they say.

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