Catfish

Today has been an interesting day, and as you can tell from the time I am posting at.. this evening has been much calmer than last!

I'm going to summarise today because I'm more interested in writing about the movie we just watched.

We started the day by taking on the persona of famous writers and creating their profiles to express how they would  have perceived social media.

After the break we were asked to go and interview the locals about their views on social media and the pros and cons they feel that come with it. It was very interesting to get the opinions from people around here (when we finally found people that spoke english!!). 

We then presented our findings in different forms to the group, some people made videos and other slideshows.. There seemed to be similar answers coming from everyone though:

Pros

• Networking
• Keeping in touch with people easily
• Business promotion
• Belonging to groups

Cons 

• Dangers to more vulnerable people of who they are talking to
• Privacy issues
• Can effect career prospects
• No control over what goes on about you from other people

After that we were put into new groups to create a social media CV for our assigned jobs. My group got a journalist so we created a profile on linked in for a University Leaver looking for journalism work.

We gave him a Masters degree in journalism, added a few skills to signify he was good at what he did and an organised and punctual person and also added photography and videography to show he was self motivated. Then we added him to relevant groups and networks where employers might look for a journalist. Following completing his profile we posted a few things including a photo from a business awards ceremony he was doing an article on, a link to a 'pretend' blog and a link to a student based online magazine to show he was for students gaining work experience outside their courses. I enjoyed this task because I felt like I know what I'm doing from my experience running a business through social media.

 

So, the movie. Catfish.. For those who don't know..Catfish is a 2010 American documentary film, involving a young man, being filmed by his brother and friend, as he builds a romantic relationship with a girl on the social networking.





He becomes infatuated with this girl and establishes an unofficial relationship with her.. Before long cracks begin to show and he eventually discovers that the young girl does not exist but it was actually the girls mother pretending to be someone.

After meeting this woman (Angela) he asks her why she did such a thing and lead someone on as she did.

Angelas response is unfortunately probably the same story of many people around the world as to why they set up fake profiles and establish fake relationships. Angela's real life is not what she dreamt for her self when she was younger, she had a career as a dancer and loved it but fell in love with her now husband (Vince) who had two children from a previous marriage. The two children were severely handicapped and required full time care, and Angela's dreams of a dancer turned into that of a carer when she chose to marry her husband. She felt trapped in a life she didn't want, she loved her husband and children but it wasn't what she dreamed of.

Using Facebook to talk to Nev was never intended to go as far as it did and she never intentionally went out to hurt anyone. It was a release for her, a fantasy world where she could be who she wanted to be and not where she ended up. She became too involved with the fantasy and it soon spiralled out of control with lie on top of lie, as she was telling her husband that Nev was just a customer who bought her artwork. 

Obviously, both parties end up being hurt by this.. But after the film we asked the question.. Who was in the wrong? 

I personally don't think there's a correct answer to this as there's a lot of issues with both Nev and Angela. Nev may be the obvious victim in this, but was he too trusting in the first place? What basis did he have to establish this could be real in the first place? There was nothing on his part to suggest that the family was definitely who they were saying they were apart form Nev throwing all his trust into someone he didn't know.. And the internet is a BIG place with a lot of bad people on it unfortunately. Is it safe to be so trusting?

Angela may also seem like the bad guy at first, as she spun all these lies and ended up hurting people in the process.. But why did she do it? At the end of the day she's a very unhappy woman just searching for something to complete what's missing in her life. Being young when she gave up her career for love she didn't understand the size of her decision.. Taking on not one but TWO disabled sons and devoting your whole life not just to your partner but becoming a full time carer for the very difficult children may sound a lot smaller than you actually realise it is.

So many people in the world have these insecurities, not necessarily a lost career but anything. We're scared of failing, of what people might think of us, of missing out, of not fitting in. Hiding behind a computer can be a very easy way to escape the judgement of the outside world. An easy way to express who we want to be and an easy way to communicate with people you would never usually meet.  No confrontation.

Angela was just searching for what she is missing... And who isn't? Who doesn't want to live the life they love? She may have gone about it in the wrong way but it's so easy not to do it the right way these days with things like social media who are we to judge? People make mistakes and as I said, she never intentionally hurt anybody.

I think the film was a really good portrait of something that is a big issue, but it looked into the cause of why people do things like that!

So overall a really good day :) learnt a lot and it's great to have people who are interested in the subject to talk to about issues like this and learn other perspectives. Sometimes we forget how easy it is to judge a book by it's cover and days like today give us a bit of time to take a step back and think how other people think.

 

Bring on the rest of the week!

Thea