Catfish & Serial Killers Part 1

Have you seen the movie “Catfish“? I have not, but learned about it while reading an article on Notre Dame football star Manti Te’o and his fake online girlfriend’s death. If you do not know the story, he had an online relationship with some one he then believed died. This was talked about during games and received other national news coverage. Then it was discovered that  the girlfriend was not real and Mante Te’o was a victim of an online hoax.

So this led me to the movie Catfish where a similar situation had happened during the filming of a documentary. I also learned the Urban Dictionary‘s definition of:

1.	catfish
	A catfish is someone who pretends to be someone they’re not using Facebook or other social media to create false identities, particularly to pursue deceptive online romances.

Now the movie is questioned to be a mockumenty which, since no one involved seems to confirm or deny this, it could mean that the movie itself is a hoax  exposing the world to this strange misuse of social media.  A lucrative but harmless as well as informative hoax. But as in the Manti Te’o story, Catfishing is not so harmless and it’s only evolving into much more dangerous places.

And just to get on an ongoing  blog theme here without getting off topic. I said before that we are not using the tools around us (in this case the internet) to move forward. We use things to lie and fool each other. We play games.

Facebook pages of possible serial killer victims?

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/04/long_island_serial_killer_facebook_pages_atlantic_city.php

I ran across the above link while looking up info on the Long Island Serial Killer. For reasons I will get into in part 2 of this blog, the story of a missing Craigslist call girl leading to the discovery of  4 other bodies of missing Craigslist call girls, and then other bodies as well before the body of the girl they were originally looking for, Shannon Gilbert, was finally found, has stuck in my head ever since I saw a story on 48 Hours.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7373142n

That’s a link to  the 48 Hours story on Shannon Gilbert and what her disappearance led to, for those who want to get a jump on part 2 of this 3 part blog.

To come away from the dark side and end on a good note. THANK YOU to my new followers! I should write “blog” followers.  Don’t wan t anyone to think I’m trying to recreate the T.V. show “The Following”.  Although I do like the show… and it’s story line dealing with a serial killer using the internet to gather other twisted people to help in his games does fit into where I am going with all this. Damn, still kinda ended on the dark side.

To Be Continued…