CATFISHING

Amy Critchfield Design: Curtis Kenwright

DO YOU REALLY KNOW WHO YOU'RE TALKING TO ONLINE?

"WHO YOU ARE IS ENOUGH"

Catfishing – we all know someone who has a story about it. Arguably today’s biggest predator? A label that evolved along with the increased use of technology in our lives. According to the Cambridge English Dictionary catfishing is ‘the practise of pretending on social media to be something different, in order to trick or attract another person.’ But what does catfishing really mean to us now? Do we all have our own perception, possibly more subjective and influenced by experiences?

Tag ‘21 asked you for your definition of catfishing. The running theme was the idea of pretending to be someone else. Most answers revolved around this concept with words like ‘deception’ and ‘false betrayal’ being used. The motivation behind it was also mentioned. 18 year old Mel Armitage from Hampden Park told Tag “people catfish in order to elicit information, photos or attention from another person.” Despite the conformity of most answers, there seemed to be another theme emerging. The excessive editing of pictures on social media was touched upon numerous times. This was in the context of people posting photos, which 17 year old Henry Neville from Battle described as being “very rarely a true representation of a person’s image.” This viewpoint, from more than one teenager, strays from the initial definition we encountered from the Cambridge English Dictionary. Could this deception be described as a form of catfishing?

Think about the last photo you posted of yourself online. Was it natural or edited? Did it take you hundreds of attempts just to get that perfect shot, or was it the first picture you snapped?

Here at Tag we will be the first to hold up our hands and admit we have done this. We wish to portray the best versions of ourselves to the world and what’s the harm in having pride in our image? Does this make us catfish?

This is where the problem lies. This is not the dictionary definition of ‘catfishing’. Does this mean the term needs updating? Has the old ‘catfishing’ been replaced by a more modern version, that’s more innocent and mundane?

While posting a picture that may not be completely transparent is in no way a crime, does it also have negative repercussions? As we scroll through Instagram and see supposed perfect lives and faces, are we subconsciously comparing ourselves to them? The problem is, the more we compare ourselves, the more we wish for change, while our real beauty lies in the differences.

Spreading the message that we don’t need to possess these perfect lives in order to be valued is a very important one. Everyone should know they are special and unique and that is what truly matters, less than how many likes you have, where you went on holiday or what you wore. It doesn’t matter how many followers you have or how big your house looks on your profile. Who you are is enough and that is the message that must stay with us all.