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Don’t ask what my ‘passion’ is – watching catfish TV shows is as deep as it gets

Some people crack open a weighty political tome of an evening. I prefer escapism

I’ll sit down to watch catfish TV shows with a cuppa in the same way my grandmother would with an Agatha Christie drama. Photograph: Getty Images

Jessica Doyle
Thu May 19 2022 - 06:00

On a first date my friend was asked: “What is your passion?” Can you imagine? I can’t think of a more jarring question. I would have thought I’d be able to come up with something on the spot, but it had me stumped. What can you say?

I think it would be more off-putting if someone had a ready-made response: “my passion is travelling” – you like holidays? How interesting – or worse again, “my passion is fitness”, which would have me sprinting out the pub door with more existential dread than I entered it with.

I find the most glorious escapism in a genre of media that has continued to flourish since my coming of age; that is, the catfish-related kind

The issue is that any attempt at an earnest response is too revealing to expose to someone you’ve just met. A more acceptable first-date question would be “what do you do when you’re not working?” It may even be a truer indicator of your personality than something as philosophical as your passion. As in, what do you really do when you collapse on the couch after a long day?

I’m sure there are many people who love nothing more than cracking open a weighty political tome of an evening or working through the literary canon. I, however, find the most glorious escapism in a genre of media that has continued to flourish since my coming of age; that is, the catfish-related kind.

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It began in 2010, when I was hanging off the edge of the couch in a bout of teenage boredom watching TV with my mam. I was thinking of sloping off to bed when the opening credits of a documentary on Channel 4 grabbed my attention. When the title Catfish appeared I thought, oh no, is this some nature thing?

The film introduced us to the charming protagonist, Nev Schulman, flouncing around New York, while being filmed on a handheld camcorder by his friend and brother. It’s easy to forget, when now I spend more time researching TV shows than watching them, that this just appeared on the screen and we had no idea what it was. The home-made look of the film drew me in, and I had to keep watching because there was no way to record it.

We were hooked on Nev’s journey to meet the woman he was falling in love with over Facebook. It was like You’ve Got Mail for the social media age.

At the time I was thinking, okay, it’s probably not really a blonde-haired dancer he’s talking to, but I got wrapped up in the story and really hoped it would work out. There was plenty of evidence to suggest his love interest was who she said she was: she had an entire Facebook network of friends and family and even sent him paintings by her “sister”. All the while I was watching, I was still wondering, why on earth is this called Catfish?

Spoiler alert: it turned out she wasn’t the young woman she purported to be and was in fact a much older woman who was caring for her two disabled stepsons who needed around-the-clock care.

It is now on its eighth season and the sense of jeopardy has undoubtedly waned over the years, but sometimes the people are real, and it's still my go-to comfort show

Although I knew she was a master manipulator, I felt incredible sympathy for how lonely she was. Her husband, by way of a metaphor, explained how when cod is being transported from Alaska to China, they put a catfish in with them to keep them moving so they arrive fresh. “And there are those people who are catfish in life . . . They keep you guessing, they keep you thinking, they keep you fresh,” he said. My 15-year-old mind was blown by his poeticism.

And thus, the genre of the twenty-teens was born, and the term catfish went on to become the dictionary definition of someone who creates a fake online profile with the intent to deceive. There are now many documentaries and podcasts with a similar theme such as Sweet Bobby and The Tinder Swindler.

Nev has since started a show on MTV in which he helps hopefuls meet their online love interest. I know the format by heart at this stage: the possible catfish’s phone and laptop camera are simultaneously broken, they’re too shy to talk on the phone, they’re too busy at work to meet – yet they can text 24/7.

The show always delves into the catfish’s story, and you end up feeling sorrier for them than the person they lied to. It is now on its eighth season and the sense of jeopardy has undoubtedly waned over the years, but sometimes the people are real, and it’s still my go-to comfort show. I’ll sit down to watch it with a cuppa in the same way my grandmother would with an Agatha Christie drama.

On second thought, maybe this would be unsettling first-date talk. The poor fella might turn around and say: “Listen, I know my profile photos are a few years old, but I wouldn’t say I’m a catfish.”

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