Catfish

Catfish

I went to see Catfish after watching The Social Network in the hopes that I would get to see the effect Facebook has over people. The Social Network was the story of how Facebook was created. Catfish is the story of the effect Facebook can have on culture, in this case, to a specific individual.

By watching the official trailer for Catfish, it makes it seem like it's a horror movie. Especially when it is quoted by a critic as "the best Hitchcock film Hitchcock never directed". It's not a horror movie. Well, not the kind of horror with people dying and such. Though, I can see how some might view, what happens, as horrific and frightening.

I'm not going to say much about the film itself because I don't want to really spoil it. So I'm going to focus my thoughts on Facebook as an illusion of reality. **I've just spoiled the movie, but the twist and ending is expected and nothing shocking (especially, if you're a cynic)**

Most of us grew up with internet technologies. We know what appropriate behavior on the internet is. Some of us were taught to never provide information about yourself online because on the other side of the connection/computer could be a creepy old guy talking to you and touching himself at the same time. Social networking sites have changed that interaction between people on the internet. No longer do we withhold information about our private lives. If you go on Facebook, you can get a great deal of information about a person through their profile. All of which is voluntarily disclosed.

With that said, we expect that what we see on Facebook is real. They are real representations of real people (to a point... depending on the person). This film acts as somewhat of a wake-up call. We can't really accept everything on the Web, in this case Facebook, as wholly truthful. I think we need to evaluate the social connections made online.