Didn’t Darwin have something to say about catfish?

Or perhaps it was finches…..

Those of us who spend most of our lives in a reality, not fantasy existence, might not be aware that “catfishing” is a thing.

Apparently it’s a form of social engineering when someone is fooled into a relationship with another person who doesn’t actually exist or many aspects of their supposed life is a fabrication. A situation one imagines is a bit like the experience of being Christopher Pyne’s wife.

It would seem some of these relationships are very intense and, to the victim, quite real.

Here’s an example;

The article then goes on to explain a situation where a woman spent six years believing she was in a relationship with a man and then had a revelation and realised it was a hoax.

What was the cause of revelation, the “cruel way” as the headline suggests?

Erm, she told someone that she’d never actually met the person she called “boyfriend”.

No, really. Six years of being girlfriend and boyfriend and they’d never been in the same room at the same time.

Six years. Not days or even weeks. Years.

The unfortunate woman is an F-list celebrity, apparently, called Casey Donovan.

In addition to the couple of hundred words published in the Sunday supplements, she’s got a book for sale which presumably devotes a significant proportion of the chapters to this episode, given that it lasted for about half her adult life.

Here’s a picture of Casey;

Casey’s 15 minutes of fame came after she won a TV singing talent show.

Without wishing to be overly-harsh in our judgement of Casey, perhaps the fairest thing we could say is that, before and during her period of fame she had some not insignificant unresolved personal issues.

Question; if you have responsibility for a reality TV show or a newspaper Sunday supplement, what duty of care do you have when providing brittle personalities with a public platform?

Bill’s Opinion

Much of what passes for entertainment on TV is a direct descendent of the Victorian-era freak shows, putting those on the mental and physical margins of the population on our screens nightly for our voyeuristic curiosity.

When their time in the sun is over, if they are lucky they can return to the task of overcoming whatever challenges they had previously but with the additional burden of any new issues as a consequence of their brief fame.

Such as an imaginary boyfriend.

Apparently Casey is currently driving for Uber, which is a more productive use of her time with the added bonus that she will actually get to meet real humans.