The MTV show Catfish, along with the 2010 documentary of the same name that started it all, should have made people wise to the phenomenon of falling for someone online who turns out to be someone entirely different.

Yet, the host of the show, Nev Schulman, is yet to run out of people to help – which tells us that the practice of catfishing is alive and well.

Catfishing – for those of you who have just emerged from whatever cave you’ve been living in – is the practice of pretending to be someone else online with the purpose of defrauding or deceiving other users.

Here’s The Conversation:

When a deep emotional bond grows with someone, even via texts, phone calls and instant messages, it can be devastating to find out that person has been lying about some major aspect of their identity or intentions.

…Sometimes the deception is unintentional. For instance, some people don’t know themselves well, so they tend to see and present themselves more positively than is accurate.

In episode 13 from the show’s [Catfish] second season, a woman named Chasity uses someone else’s pictures and claims to be named Kristen.

Others may intentionally create a fake profile but then connect with someone unexpectedly deeply and find the situation hard to come clean about.

Some catfish set out to intentionally hurt people in order to get revenge, and some catfish are addicted to the high of catfishing.

Whatever the reason, the person getting catfished is not going to be happy about it when it all comes out. So how do you avoid it, outside of never trusting anyone ever again? Nev Schulman, the OG catfishing victim, has some expert advice.

First, here are some of the most common tricks that catfish use:

And here he is expanding on the above using examples from MTV’s Catfish:

People fall for catfish because, when you’re into someone, you’re more likely to believe what they’re telling you.

Which brings us to the ultimate red flag:

If it seems to good to be true – it probably is.

[source:theconversation]