Catfish
Entertainment

New Season of “Catfish” Captivates MTV

Nev Schulman and Max Joseph, hosts of the MTV series “Catfish: The TV Show,” are reeling in what could be the worst catfish yet.

A catfish is a person who pretends to be someone they are not by using social media such as Facebook, Instagram, and dating apps to create false identities, mainly to pursue deceptive online romances and relationships, however, in episodes from prior seasons, some catfish used social media solely to get money from the other person and had no interest in a relationship.

The concept of “Catfish: The TV Show” began after Schulman himself was catfished back in 2010. He believed he was talking to a gorgeous, blonde, twenty-something when he was really talking to a married and middle-aged woman, Angela Wesselman. While that occurred, Schulman’s friend, Henry Joost, and sister, Ariel Schulman, documented everything and it later premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Once it was seen by the public, many contacted Schulman explaining that they had experienced very similar situations. “Catfish: The TV Show” was then created to follow the journey of hopeless romantics that have formed online relationships without meeting each other. It is up to Nev and Max to tell the stories of these hopeless romantics as they discover the truth behind these online romances and sometimes shocking revelations along the way.

“Catfish: The TV Show” made its debut on November 12, 2012 and the show recently began season five, which premiered on August 10, 2016 with two very intriguing episodes. In the first episode, former Playboy model and mother of two, Jayme Nelson, requests the help of Nev and Max when she discovers that her online boyfriend, Lucas, is not only fake, but is catfishing an insanely large number of other women as well.

Jayme turned to online dating because other men could not accept the fact that she is a single mother and pole dancer. Jayme met Lucas on Tinder, which makes this the first Tinder love story ever on “Catfish.” Prior to meeting with Nev and Max, Jayme was contacted by another one of Lucas’ girlfriends, Urszula, who said that Lucas has cat fished over four hundred women and to him, all of those women were simply an experiment. By doing a reverse image search, they find out that Lucas is really a man by the name of Zach who has solicited inappropriate pictures from each and every one of the women he has cat fished. As if cat fishing over four hundred women isn’t bad enough, Zach had list, upon list, that categorized all the women; “Jayme, former Playboy, has children, on the level of saying I love you. Urszula, from New York, told her I would move to New York to be with her, also told her I am in love with her, sent me this picture on this day. Sarah, from Texas, told her I would move to Texas to be with her, wants a relationship with Lucas.”

When Nev, Max, Jayme, and Urszula finally meet Zach, they are all disgusted while he thinks the whole situation is amusing. He is the type of catfish that believes there is no harm in what he has done. Zach told Nev and Max that his catfishing days are over, but personally I found that hard to believe. His life revolved around talking to all those women and making them believe he was Lucas. He felt no remorse for his actions, so he will most likely continue down the road of catfishing and keep misleading other innocent women.

Following that episode was the love story of Larissa and Anthony. This catfish may not be strange and immature like Zach; however, Nev and Max discover the truth behind all of Anthony’s lies. Previously catfished before, naive Larissa reaches out to Nev and Max to see if Anthony is really who he says he is. This catfish claimed to have moved to Larissa’s home town of Yakima, Wa. from Escondido, Ca. Nev and Max could not believe that since Yakima is a very small town, so it was highly possible they could have run into each other. Upon speaking with Larissa and gathering all the information they need, Nev and Max did their research and found out that Anthony is not who he says he is, and more importantly, he does not live in Yakima. His real name is Jose and he was really almost three thousand miles away in Kodiak, Alaska! Larissa, feeling very foolish, had her heart broken once again.

In each episode of “Catfish: The TV Show,” Nev and Max contact the suspected catfish requesting that they come clean and meet the person they have been cat fishing.  That has proven to be a struggle for the two because the catfish is not always willing to speak with them, and a majority of the time, they hang up the phone or ignore the phone call. In this case, Jose did not respond to Nev, Max, or Larissa. It seemed like he was MIA and wanted nothing to do with Larissa anymore. Although the three of them had not heard from Jose, Nev figured that since Kodiak is such a small island, they could go around asking people if they have seen him. Nev was determined to find him so that Larissa could get the answers she needs and move on. While they were successful on their catfish hunt, the ending will still leave you very surprised. Every episode of “Catfish: The TV Show” just gets better and better, so be sure to check out all the new upcoming episodes every Wednesday night at 10 on MTV!

IMAGE TAKEN from www.mtv.com