"Catfish: The TV Show" has become a big MTV hit. It is basically about two guys, Nev Schulman and Max Joseph, who investigate fishy online relationships (no pun intended). In the show you meet a partner in a relationship who is wary that who they are talking to isn't who they say they are. Throughout the show you see Nev and Max meet the person trying to figure out if their spouse is a catfish. You get information about the relationship and you watch Nev and Max do some online snooping. In most cases the person is not who they say they are and are hiding major facts about their life. What confuses me is how people let these relationships get so far without any confirmation they are talking to the right person. From watching the show and having great lurking skills I have came up with some tips on how to not get catfished.
1. Check Snapchat.
It is 2016 and a majority of the population has access to a phone with a front facing camera, or any type of camera for that matter. A quick way to see if the person is who they say they are is by asking to Snapchat. If they are not willing to send a quick snap of themselves to you, then why trust them?
2. Search for them online.
The easiest way to find out information about a mysterious person is to search for their name online. By doing this you can find pictures, web pages and if you're lucky, Spokeo results that show information like where they live or a phone number match.
3. Do some lurking.
Lurking on someones social media is probably one of the most important things to do when trying to figure out who someone really is. For instance if you notice that the potential catfish only has 10 friends and they look like bot accounts, then there is a chance that the profile is fake. When lurking on Facebook you can simply go to the "About" tab on the potential catfish's Facebook profile and find out information about their home town, phone number, family members, high school attended and much more.
4. Reverse image search.
Google Images has a feature where you can reverse image search with a URL or by uploading an image. With this nifty advanced setting you can search the other person's photos and see what pages the pictures appear on. Below is how to do an advanced image search on Google Images:
1. Go to https://images.google.com/.
2. Click the tiny camera icon to the left of the microphone icon.
3.From there you can either drop a URL or upload your image.
5. Reverse phone number lookup.
On websites such as Whitepages you can do a reverse phone number lookup. You simply add the phone number and you are able to see which state the phone is registered to.
6. Common sense.
Let's be real. If you have been in a committed online relationship for more than a year and the person has not made any effort to confirm their identity, then you should probably end ties or make sure that you receive some sort of confirmation that you are talking to the person in the pictures before things get too deep. If he says he is an astronaut who lives on Mars, has three puppies and is too good to be true, then chances are, he really is too good to be true. Don't believe everything you hear until you have proof.
7. Call "Catfish: The TV Show."
If you really need help figuring out who the person is, then I guess you might as well call Nev and Max and you can have your catfish journey air on television.
