Hadn't heard of this show until Manti and just watched episode 1. Pretty amazing show. I was hoping the two girls ended up becoming lesbian lovers at the end, but they didn't

I can't believe there wasn't a thread for this yet. I watched the first two episodes tonight, and it just totally drove two big things: 1) there are some incredibly stupid people out there, and 2) beautiful people have it made, as people will "fall in love" with their "personality" almost immediately.

So far, I think the show is excellent. The first episode had me laughing non-stop, and the second episode brought about more of a "there's about to be a car crash, so look away" feeling. I haven't seen the movie, but between the show's intro recap of it plus what I've seen in the first two episodes, it is funny to see these people will "fall in love" with someone's personality...until they realize the person is actually ugly, at which point they just want to be friends. Frankly, I think it says a lot about why the divorce rate is so high, as it certainly leads you to believe a lot of people think they're "falling in love" when they're really just shallow and/or horny.

To be fair, the first episode she wasn't just ugly but also not a dude lol

Just watched ep2 and it was pretty good as well. It was weird how it went from her sounding like they could be together to her saying they were just gonna be friends. It feels like they edited out a critical part of their conversation or something. It really looked like he had a shot at one point.

I've watched almost all the episodes on Hulu and I gotta tell ya... with every episode it more and more unbelievable.

It's almost eye rolling. Especially out of 7 or 8, there hasn't been one neutral-positive outcome, just more outlandish.

love this show

even tho its outlandish i'd like to think that the important bullet points are real and that these people are just that stupid

they all seem pretty stupid

the episode with the fat mixed girl (lol there's like 3 of those) ended happily, but she wasnt in any position to be picky...

Its entertaining, but just like the movie its 90% fake. I'm sure these people have fake online relationships, but from the two I've seen, its pretty obvious they play up the scope of the relationship to make better TV (e.g. just like Manti). They portray some flirting/sexting as a serious relationship and then then pretend to be crushed when the "love of their life" turns out to be fake.

It's a good concept, but I also doubt that much of it is real. I just watched the first one, it doesn't make much sense why the girl pretending to be the dude gave out her real address.

Nonsense. This stuff really happens -- how many times does it have to occur before you guys believe that people will go to any lengths to delude themselves? From Manti to every backwoods redneck on Catfish, people have an incredible urge to be loved and a relentless defense mechanism that prevents them from seeing the truth and having their hearts broken.

Read some psychology books about cognitive biases like The Anchoring Effect and Confabulation. Your cynicism about this show will disappear once you're better educated.

LOL, excuse my poor education. I don't doubt that stuff like this happens a lot. But this is MTV, all of their reality shows contain an element smoke and mirrors. You really think this show is completely organic when every case they decide to pick up ends up having a dramatic and exciting climax?

Of course they edit for maximum drama but that doesn't meant the stories, people, or situations are fake at all, let alone "90% fake."

They don't select which people to put on the show at random. They choose those that are most dramatic.

Possible - but that doesn't explain the move where they only had one shot. The claim that they were just randomly documenting Nev's budding online relationship for day-one makes little sense. There has been a ton of analysis of the movie, and pretty much all of it shows many of the elements could not have happened as portrayed in the movie.

I don't dispute that this stuff can and does happen, but MTV and the movie completely play it up to make it more dramatic. In real life, if a jock just found out that he had been sexting some fat black dude, he would not have been nearly as calm as in the episode. MTV has a great hisotry of playing up and inventing most of the dramatic elements of its "reality" TV shows (such as the fact that almost every relationship on the Hills was faked). The show is about making good TV, not being a documentary.

You're conflating the film and the TV show. They're not the same thing (first person vs third person makes a huge difference) and not produced the same way.

I am making the assumption that if they faked most of the movie to make it more dramatic, they are similarly willing to fake most of the TV show to make it more dramatic. Add in the fact that every MTV "reality" show is largely fake (name one that isn't) and I think its a fair assumption that most of the episodes are largely faked/embellished for dramatic effect.

This.

The movie I haven't even seen and don't really care to see because after like five minutes of reading stuff about it I became convinced it was fake.

However that stuff definitely happens and if tons of people are emailing that dude and MTV saying it happened to them and they pick the very best (in their opinion) cases to put on TV, research them well beforehand and ya probably do a fair amount of scripting, it could and does make for some good TV.

I think it's more likely there is a hole in your house of assumptions than that these people aren't actually this stupid. One hole: all of their reality shows are not 'largely fake' - I have several friends who went on one and none of them described it that way.

One part of the show is obviously semi-fake though. The research they are doing on camera in a hotel room has obviously already been done by them and MTV producers etc in the process of vetting them for the show. That is almost certainly just for dramatic effect.

Basically what amber said.

Also I was a casting director and co-producer of several reality shows for three-plus years and it's easy for any of us in the business to tell what's fake and what's not. You want fake, go watch The Bachelor. Catfish is certainly edited carefully and presented for maximum drama (e.g. Nev could call out the catfish on the phone and say "You stole your profile pictures from someone else; what's the deal with that?" instead of playing coy and driving the victim out to meet them) but the situations, people involved, and emotions are real.

I'm not sure we actually disagree that much. I think I may just have a different definition of "fake."

I am not saying that the basic plot didn't happen - you are right that there are plenty of morons that get tricked on the internet that MTV can find plenty of real stories. I just think that most of the shots we are shown are scripted as opposed to real and the details of the relationships exaggerated. At least on the two episodes I've seen, the big reveal didn't seem real - in the sense that it seemed like the victim knew in advance. For instance, as I discussed I would have expected the jock to be much more upset with the gay dude. Perhaps he didn't know before he contacted MTV, but it seemed like he know before the confrontation/reveal. Another reason why I think he knew in advance is the fear of anotehr Jenny Jones incident - i.e. the victim goes crazy and beats/kills his fake internet crush. Unless MTV is traveling with a big team of security, I can't see them taking that risk.

Similarly, when they were talking to all his friends in advance of the meeting, that seemed scripted to me in that were talking up the relationship to be more important than it was.

Out of curiosity, which MTV shows are you saying aren't scripted? I had some friends that have been on the dating shows (Next, etc). and they said even those were almost completely scripted - they were given lines, strongly encouraged who to pick, etc.. The "dates" themselves were real, but pretty much everything else was directed by the producers.

Jonny -- I see what you're saying now and you're definitely using a different definition of "fake" than I was. To the extent that any television show that doesn't contain security camera footage or candid surveillance video is fake, it's "fake" (complicit subjects performing with the knowledge of cameras around). But compared to dating shows like Next or The Bachelor, or even competition shows like Project Runway, it's quite real.

(My quibble is that the production of it and staging of meetings makes it 10-15% fake, not 90%).

The show was called Dismissed. Two guys and a girl or two girls and a guy would go on a date and they'd get to pick one and 'Dismiss' one.

They were doing recruiting at a bar and me and several friends got our pictures taken by them and they ended up eventually inviting all of us on the show. I declined because I didn't have a car and couldn't get a ride to (IIRC) Santa Monica

I agree we just have a different definition of fake. I expect what you are describing from every reality show. If you want 100% reality with no scripting I guess you can watch youtube haha

Have a bunch of these on my DVR, but due to time constraints have only watched a couple of episodes, and for both of those I watched the very beginning to get the run down, then fast-forwarded to the reveal. Am I missing much in between? I don't understand how this show can be an hour.

If I have one complaint it's this. They could do 2-3 per hour IMO.

So how many times has the crew flown to a city, shot footage, and then not been able to meet up with the Catfish'er? Guessing they do they do the research/phone calls before hand?

Wow the guy this week is a scumbag.

Its easy to see that the setup is real. They film individually and if a real good story comes about they call in the MTV crew with the real cameras and audio.

I really like the show. Sucks you guys are hating pretty hard.

Good point on Nev and his buddy filming the early stages themselves. Agree that this is definitely not fake as far as reality shows go. As far as the one guy not being mad about the gay black guy and his dialogue with his friends seeming stunted, I think that really seems like a case of the guy just not wanting to look like a racist or a homophobe on TV, and rehearsing what he was gonna say himself ahead of time.

Anyway, I'm definintely completely hooked on the show. It's absolutely fascinating. The 2 or 3 minutes before the "catfish" finally gets revealed is the most intense thing on television. I actually even get a little nervous for it, and it's really amazing that they keep coming up with new twists. They must follow up dozens and dozens of leads that aren't fit for television to end up with this many different outcomes.