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Articles · Catfishing · 2 min read
What is catfishing?
Catfishing is building a relationship with you from behind a stolen face — borrowed photos, a fictional life, and always a reason you can't meet. It runs in the same four steps:
The borrowed face
A person assembled from stolen photos
Pictures lifted from a stranger's profile, a name that doesn't match any of them, a life story written to fit whatever you're looking for.
The bond
Attention, every day
Good-morning messages, long conversations, remarkable interest in your life. The relationship moves fast because building it is their full-time job.
The wall
A reason you can never meet
The camera is broken, the shift ran long, the trip got cancelled. Every plan to meet or video call collapses at the last moment — because a borrowed face can't show up.
The ask
What the person was built for
Money for an emergency, a gift card, private photos, your secrets. Sometimes it comes after weeks, sometimes months. That's catfishing — a relationship designed to end in a request.
The wall is the tell. Real feelings survive a video call; a borrowed face never lets you see it move.
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