Nev starts this week off by telling us that June 25 is National Catfish Day, as declared by Ronald Reagan. Well, I’m sure he would have thought twice if he could have foreseen what you’ve created here, Nev. It’s an embarrassment to humankind. Anyway, Nev’s current project is Tyler who has been in love with Amanda on Facebook for two years. Two years! Amanda is just not like the girls Tyler meets in Flint, Michigan where he lives. She lives a few hours away in Kalamazoo, so of course she’s totally different. But she doesn’t have a cell phone and her webcam is always out of the question for some reason or another so ALL communication – for two years! – has taken place on Facebook. Can Nev help end the madness?
Nev and Max skype Tyler and agree to come to Michigan to help him hunt down Amanda. I guess driving to Kalamazoo all on his own hasn’t been in Tyler’s realm of possibilities. When they hang up they both comment that Tyler is remarkably normal. He’s good looking, athletic, and probably meets girls all the time. They decide that there’s something alluring about the on-line girl. Yes, it’s called a fantasy. She’s anything you can dream up in your mind as long as she’s off in Facebook Land.
She doesn’t talk or get her period either.
It looks like Tyler lives the farthest out in the boondocks of any of our e-daters so far because Nev and Max have to stay in a cabin at a KOA campground. Are there no motels in Flint? Is it the land that God forgot? Not a big tourist destination I guess. Tyler shows the guys around his backyard and they want to know why Tyler isn’t dating any of the cute girls from Flint they saw on his Facebook page. Tyler says they’re too immature and play head games. Nev points out that two years of refusing to even talk on the phone is a head game in itself. Tyler just says that as long as there’s a chance Amanda is the real thing he wants to find out. So they check out Amanda and Tyler’s Facebook interactions, noting a particular exchange where Amanda expresses her desire to put certain parts of Tyler’s body in her mouth. Tyler admits to sending her risque photos. Hmm, embarrassing.
“Yeah, I just don’t think someone would lie about fellatio.”
As for Amanda’s lack of cell phone, it seems that when she moved away for college, she and her dad were on bad terms so he refused to continue paying for her phone and she can’t afford one herself. Riiiiiight. 8-year-olds have cell phones nowadays. Come on.
The next day, after a relaxing evening in the cabin, Nev and Max head over to go fishing with Tyler and some of his buddies. They fish in a small pond where Nev catches the equivalent of a goldfish and Tyler and crew pull out some pretty big fish. One is even a catfish – imagine that!
“Now we can cancel the photo shoot for the Season 2 poster.”
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21 Comments
Obviously the people who are duping people and pretending to be someone they’re not are missing something and faking another life is filling some kind of void but I have to think that these obviously dubious relationships are filling some kind of void that also exists in the person being duped. So many of these people are obvious fakes and the excuses they give the people they are duping would barely fly in 2002 let alone 2012! I can’t accept that people being tricked are really this dense – it has to be willful ignorance because they want to believe. I especially thought that in this episode. How could he believe in 2 years she never had access to a phone of any sort? Not even a friend’s? Or anyone with a webcam?
Aaron gets off on seducing straight guys. Theres no mystery or deep seated trama. Its his thing and he probably not going to stop.
Seriously. This isn’t the 60′s anymore. One no longer has to move to New York City in order to be gay in peace.
It is funny how your avatar is a pink triangle and you said that PinkTop.
I’ll be honest, I laughed really hard when I saw that the girl was really a gay guy. Overall, I thought it was an eh episode. A bigger twist than some of the other episodes where the people are just fatter than the pictures they showed. But there was no drama. People were rational and calm.
There is a star player for Notre Dame, Manti Te’o that got catfished himself. So, it can happen to anyone who’s willing to believe it I guess. I get skeptical about someone if they’re being nicer to me to my face than they should be, let alone someone who wouldn’t even skype with me. But, there are all kinds of people who are desperate and lonely enough for something that feels like real love that they will stretch the bounds of belief to feel it.
I can’t wait for next week where it appears as though the faker is the one reaching out to Nev, and is wanting to come clean.
Also, I loved how uncomfortable Nev got when Tyler told him he sent him dick pics. Classic Nev.
I’m just waiting for this to explode in a really bad way. Nev seems to be playing armchair psychologist with the catfishers and catfishees and I’m just afraid someone is going to start throwing punches one of these days.
First of all, Amanda has no phone, right? Well in some the pictures she has, she’s doing the thing where you take a picture of yourself in the mirror WITH A PHONE!! Also, when the high school friends were there, I’m surprised they didn’t say, “I’m single!!!”
Is there ever going to be an episode where both people are who they say they are, and live happily ever after?
At one point during the episode, I felt like I was watching a “Google Image Search” infomercial. Nev was explaining the process to Tyler: You take a picture, and drag it into the search bar on google image search, and then it finds the image on the BIG WORLD WIDE WEB.
Tyler looked at him like he was an idiot. I would also appreciate a title card at the beginning of each episode: The following show is brought to you with limited commercial interruption (because Nev will shamelessly plug our service throughout the episode) by GOOGLE IMAGE SEARCH – helping stupid people find out their being duped by crazies since 2012!!!
The spokesman from Notre Dame actually referenced Catfish at some point in the whole Manti Teo thing. The REALLY sick part of that whole ordeal was that Teo thought his girlfriend was actually dead – and died within a day of his grandmother. He found out it wasn’t true when someone called him from her number last month, said “I’m not dead” and hung up. Now… I’m not certain he is completely clueless about this whole thing… but he seems like a genuinely nice guy. Kind of hard to believe that with such a high-profile guy that NO ONE figured out this girl wasn’t real before now. His fans actually sent money to a leukemia foundation in her honor… no one realized this girl didn’t exist, nor did she die??? Its a little (cat)fishy.
Great recap!!! Most weeks, its better than the show!
@sardini – my guess is no, because people who are who they say they are can prove it in a timely manner.
haha it’s 2013 and I actually have no cellphone and I’m 22 and it’s because I’m in college and can barely afford to eat or buy a metrocard (I live in NYC and use public transportation to go to school) so I stopped wanting to struggle to pay a phone bill. So not everyone has a cellphone. I do have a webcam though. I thought every laptop came with one now.
I’m also not a creep and met my boyfriend in real life and go out on real dates. People baffle me
I am from MI and I gathered from this ep that he is from Holly, MI which is between Flint and Detroit. Really an odd location more so than in the boondocks. Like there are 2 highways nearby and everything. Never heard of anyone either going there or coming from there though.
My favorite part of this episode is when Tyler came clean to his friends and one said “how far did you go on the date” and they busted out laughing and so did I
Everyone is starting to question that Notre Dame player saying he may not have been Catfished after all .. it’s all over the news blogs and they had an extensive conversation about it on CNN including showing a tape of the coach giving the “girlfriend” the game ball
Waaaait wait wait. This Notre Dame thing is happening NOW?! I am at a coffee shop on my lunch break and it’s on CNN. WHAT?! How does this happen, and why is it national news?!
Women, tend to not ask for dick pictures. It would take anyone 2 seconds to figure out that a beautiful woman who has no phone or webcam and likes to be sent dick pictures is a dude. Let alone two years.
I think Tyler must be a little slow, maybe with the mentality of a 12 year old. He had this lost expression the whole time. College’s do take mentally challenged people, so hopefully he’s getting some guidance there.
I agree with you all who worry it may end in violence, but hopefully those involved in this show won’t, because they know that since they are on tv, they would never get away with it. Although it didn’t stop the Jenny Jones incident. I did notice that Amanda/Aaron asked Nev if he would be there when they were FB chatting, and said it made him feel better. Probably his insurance of knowing that Tyler wouldn’t beat the crap out of him when he realized it was a guy, since there would be witnesses.
@KG…dicks aren’t pretty. Why would I want a picture of it?
What did these nut-jobs do before the internet?
@labowner – personal ads and hookers
Even when I meet someone in a bar if he does not have a cell phone or debit card it’s a huuuge red flag. And Tyler never thought that she can afford – a computer, college, fake boobs, a vacation on a cruise based on the pictures but not a boost mobile cell phone?
@sardini……YES! I was thinking the same thing. He does realize cell phones are ALSO ELECTRONIC THINGYS YOU CAN TALK TO SOMEONE WITH and not just used for taking pictures, right?! Duuuuuurrrr
I swear these people are dumb as rocks.
Meanwhile, glad to see some more Michigan freak-love. I think that makes 2 Michigan stories for Catfish the TV show, not to mention the location for the original Catfish Movie.
(I lived in Michigan a few years ago, it will always have a place in my sarcastic heart)
I laughed when Nev said ‘fellatio’. He was so visibly uncomfortable with the whole situation.
And I prefer bitter Max who seems to be tiring of this whole routine. Also, I prefer Max with his shirt off!
@faye- B Kelly gave Manti the “game ball” in the locker room, after the game, to give to send back to his girlfriend. There’s no footage of him giving the ball to a girl and pretending it was Manti’s gf. Manti got DUPED, hardcore.