Behind a screen, we can be whoever we want to be. It is extremely easy to take a picture of someone else, set up an online account, and pretend to be someone you're not. After watching the documentary, and several episodes of the MTV show Catfish, it's disturbing to see how many people lie about who they actually are. In this day and age, almost everyone has some sort of social media account. We have hundreds of friends of Facebook, Instagram, and twitter, but how many of those people do we actually know? I have over 500 friends on Facebook and I can honestly say that I don't really know anything about them besides what they post online. Is any of the stuff they post true? Are they actually who they say they are? I guess I'll never know..
In the documentary, Angela went through great lengths to stay in contact with Nev. Not only did I feel bad for Nev, I also felt a little bad for Angela. I thought it was admirable how Nev handled the situation, because spending nine months talking to a "family" that doesn't even exist is crazy! I felt bad for Angela because it was obvious that she was desperate to escape from the reality that is her life. Living with her husband, young daughter, and two mentally-handicapped step sons obviously put a lot of pressure on her. One thing that stood out to me was when Angela said that she found "parts of herself" that she forgot existed in the people she pretended to be. There is no doubt that she has a problem, but instead of just labeling her as "crazy," I thought about it for a while. This woman obviously lost part of her identity, so coming up with these elaborate stories about these different people probably made her feel like "herself" again. She found small parts of herself in each and every character. I am in no way saying that it was okay, because at the end of the day, not only did she disappoint her family, but she led a stranger on for almost an entire year! Catfish, the documentary and TV show does an amazing job of letting the public know that you should always be cautious because lying on the internet is a piece of cake.
As we learned from Sartre when we choose to do anything we are choosing not to do the other options that exist. So with that in mind Angela would always be disappointed if she decide to do anything in life. She can't intrude and ruin other people lives because she isn't happy with the options she chose in life. I do understand we lose ourselves sometimes as life progress but it's sometimes looking at your loses as a path for growth. You must just be proud and confident in yourself no matter your choice.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I did not feel too sorry for Angela. I think that she brought all of her pain and heartache upon herself. I also think that it is very scary to know that someone could take my pictures or information and use it to pretend to be me, or better yet it is scary to know that you can never be 100% sure of who you are talking to online.
ReplyDeleteI definitely felt sorry for Angela as well and I agree with you about having friends on social media we don't know. I have over 1000 and I can for sure tell you I have no idea who more than half of them are. It's scary to think of that. And who knows how many of these people could be someone like Angela. We don't know until it actually happens to someone we know or even ourselves. Lucky for me, the relationship I started through Facebook ended up being the guy I actually was talking to, but it of course backfired because I didn't know him as well as I would have if we had already known each other beforehand. He was a nice guy, but he just pursued the wrong things and I couldn't be with someone like that. I don't recommend any type of online relationship with someone you've never met in real life.
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