The Catfish Principal
I think I may be developing a rare social media condition: Chronic Catfish Fatigue.
Symptoms include mild skepticism, occasional existential reflection, and staring at profile photos like a detective who just discovered Photoshop has a friggin' PhD.
Fuuuu'qu!
Recently someone sent me a.. “proof photo.”
Well known User.
We'd shared banter here in the thread..
This mutual...common ground?...stumbled us in to DMs.
You know… the modern digital equivalent of “see, I’m real.”
Proof of life.
The only problem was the image was 99% AI generated and 1% like it had briefly met a human sometime in 2014.
Now here’s the strange part:
It didn’t make me angry.
It just made me… human for a minute..I think.
Because behind every weird internet interaction there’s usually three possibilities:
1. A scammer running three accounts and a crypto wallet.
2. A real person somewhere in the world also trying to be interesting, not lonely, not bored, not invisible.
3. Some dude named Frank whom longs to be...Francesca. 💃🏻
Social media trains us to become suspicious of everything...photos, stories, emotions, even kindness for god sake.
Eventually you don’t just question the fake things....hell no..
You start questioning the real ones too.
And that might be the actual tragedy of the internet.
Not the catfish.
But the fact that we’re slowly becoming people who can’t tell the difference between a face, a filter, and a person anymore.
Anyway… if anyone needs me, I’ll be over here developing a new verification system.
Step 1: Send a picture holding today’s newspaper.
Step 2: Also be slightly awkward in it.
Because honestly…
...awkward might be the last proof that someone is still human.
🔥
🩷
Symptoms include mild skepticism, occasional existential reflection, and staring at profile photos like a detective who just discovered Photoshop has a friggin' PhD.
Fuuuu'qu!
Recently someone sent me a.. “proof photo.”
Well known User.
We'd shared banter here in the thread..
This mutual...common ground?...stumbled us in to DMs.
You know… the modern digital equivalent of “see, I’m real.”
Proof of life.
The only problem was the image was 99% AI generated and 1% like it had briefly met a human sometime in 2014.
Now here’s the strange part:
It didn’t make me angry.
It just made me… human for a minute..I think.
Because behind every weird internet interaction there’s usually three possibilities:
1. A scammer running three accounts and a crypto wallet.
2. A real person somewhere in the world also trying to be interesting, not lonely, not bored, not invisible.
3. Some dude named Frank whom longs to be...Francesca. 💃🏻
Social media trains us to become suspicious of everything...photos, stories, emotions, even kindness for god sake.
Eventually you don’t just question the fake things....hell no..
You start questioning the real ones too.
And that might be the actual tragedy of the internet.
Not the catfish.
But the fact that we’re slowly becoming people who can’t tell the difference between a face, a filter, and a person anymore.
Anyway… if anyone needs me, I’ll be over here developing a new verification system.
Step 1: Send a picture holding today’s newspaper.
Step 2: Also be slightly awkward in it.
Because honestly…
...awkward might be the last proof that someone is still human.
🔥
🩷
