The movie Catfish is a real life documentary, filming the journey of Yaniv “Nev” Schuman, and his unseen relationship with “Megan” on Facebook. His relationship started by an unexpected message by Megans younger sister, Abby. Abby first contacted Nev seeking permission to paint a picture based on Nevs photo he posted on his Facebook. Once the painting was complete Abbys mother Angela sent the painting to Nev. Nev was really impressed by the painting and started to build a relationship with the two online. The relationship started by the exchange of paintings, then of information, and then soon became close friends with Abby and Angela as well as several other family members.

Soon Nev connected with Abbys sister, Megan on Facebook. She was an attractive 19 year old. Falling in love with one another their relationship quickly evolved into a long distance romance. After a couple traded phone calls, texts, and e-mails they soon decided to meet in person. Nevs brother Ariel decided to film the journey of meeting Megan, primarily to highlight the use of technology with a relationship of this sort. However, encountering many barriers along the way, and finding out more facts about Megan, Nev started to doubt the existence of so called “Megan.” Nev ultimately finds out that Megan, and the twelve other Facebook profiles of Megan’s friends and family he added were fake.

Catfish ultimately highlights the intrinsic trust that many people place on their online footprint. It further highlights the ability to manipulate information and present lies that can be trusted. Evidently this can be viewed as a precedent for future societal interaction. Perhaps future relationships will evolve into interaction independent from reality, where online manipulation of ones character is seen as the true relationship.