Catfish

         Catfish is a contemporary documentary that portrays how social media has impacted individuals and society as a whole.  Sometimes, these social media sites encourage people to get away from reality and the stresses of face to face communication.  These people feel more comfortable hiding behind a computer screen as an alternate person or projection of themselves.  Yaniv Schulman is the young man in the documentary that unfortunatley is a victim of Angela, a 40 year old woman who pretends to be a hot, young woman named Megan.  Angela would call, write, and use facebook to communicate with Yaniv.  Over time they developed a romantic relationship and a lust that led them to eventually meet, or thought Yaniv. 
         At the same time, Angela was sending Yaniv artwork through facebook that she claimed to have been done by her nine year old daughter abbey.  Yaniv and his crew would send pictures to "abbey" and she would send them replica paintings in return.  This made Yaniv's relationship with the family even more intimate as they had several interests in common.  The relationship became so close and intimate that Yaniv and his crew decided to make the trip from NewYork to Michigan. 
          Upon arrival to Michigan, Yaniv and his crew didnt exactly find what they were looking fo or what they were expecting.  They knocked on the door and finally meet Angela and realized that she had other children that she had not mentioned.  Through a second marraige she now has two severly mentally retarded boys.  These boys required 24/7 attention and care.  When they meet Angela, everything seems to being going fine and when Yaniv asks about Megan and Abbey, Angela has excuses for why neither of them wre there.  Abbey is supposedly at her friends beach house and is willing to come home to meet Yaniv.  After being skeptical about hr existence, Yaniv and the crew are relieved to see that Abbey actually exists.  What they would eventually find out, is that all the paintings were done by Angela and not Abbey.
          At first, Yaniv felt used and pissed off, and now he was begginning to think tht there was no Megan.  When having a casual conersation on the porch with Angela and the crew, Angela reveals that she will lose her hair due to kemo therapy.  Later, we find out that she was lying about having cancer and this is a perfect example of her need to live multiple lives and avoid her real one.  She feels most at ease this way.  When Yaniv asks about Megan again, Angela tells him that she has a drinking problem and that she is in rehab more than 100 miles away.  Yaniv is devastated and i becoming more skeptical about megans actual existence.  Later, Yaniv Finds out that Angela has used Megans pictures to create an alternative personality on facebook.  So in truth, Megan does exist, but she does not live in michigan and she does not know Yaniv.  She is marrid with children living on the west coast.  Yaniv is angry but iseventually able to forgive Angela because he realizes that she has issues when it comes to her life and her personality.
            Throughout this course we have been educated about many ways Web 2.0 has an impact on our daily lives.  The evolution of the Internet had rapidly evolved into somewhat of an alternate reality.  Websites such as Facebook, Twitter and Myspace are all places people can go and potentially become someone they are not.  The Internet can be a scary place and the film Catfish just goes to show how potentially dangerous it can be.  With the internet always evolving, it is becoming even more diffilcult to actually know who we are talking to and who we are giving our information to.  Personally, I do not think it is right for peopleto b making false identites to others because they are not doing it at the discretion of others on the web.  Ultimatley, I think that people get bored and lonely sometimes and they find the democratized internet and social media to be a safe haven for themselves to project their beliefs and feelings.