Why Is Our Culture Fascinated With Shows About Catfishing?

Netflix’s The Tinder Swindler is the latest series to cover a catfishing con. In the series, three women tell how they were ensnared in a relationship with an attractive jet-setting mogul who adored them. In reality, he was Shimon Hayut, an Israeli-born swindler who combined catfishing with a type of romance Ponzi scheme, with old romantic partners funding the lifestyles for him and recruits.

Many see catfishing scams in the media and would think that they can never fall for such an “obvious” scam. However, shows such as The Tinder Swindler and The Circle shows us how easy it is for people to get scammed by catfish, all while knowing there is the possibility of being scammed.

In The Circle, players participate in a competition where they can play as themselves or as catfish to win the hefty cash prize. Both catfish in The Circle and online are trying to acquire your trust. However, unlike The Circle, scammers aren’t vying for a higher rating – they are out for your money. Yet, they both use similar strategies to manipulate your emotions and build a relationship.

The psychology of catfishing is complex, and catfishers can exploit different vulnerabilities for different people. However, the number one strategy that catfish use is beauty. It’s common to use a conventionally attractive profile picture to make a positive impression. The catfisher capitalizes on our brain’s tendency to want to side with a more conventionally attractive person. This thinking is backed by “pretty privilege” bias, where unattractive people experience disadvantages and lesser opportunities than conventionally “attractive” people.

In a study by Markus M. Mobius and Tanya S. Rosenblat, the researchers conducted an experimental labor market where set employers determined the wages of their workers performing a maze-solving task. This task had nothing to do with physical attractiveness. Yet, the researchers found that there, in fact, did exist a “beauty premium,” as physically attractive workers radiated more confidence that let do an increase in wages as employers felt they were more “able” to conduct the task.¹

Outside of their profile picture, many catfishers are expert conversationalists. Their main goal is to build a relationship with you as fast as possible. One way they speed up the process of emotional intimacy (and, in some cases, steal your personal information) is to ask many questions.

A study at Harvard found that parts of the mesolimbic dopamine system, brain areas associated with reward, are activated when people are asked to talk about themselves. With these areas also implicated in sex, cocaine use, and eating tasty food, catfishers can take advantage of the pleasurable state that self-disclosure puts us in. As a result, many of these false relationships get serious much faster than normal – a characteristic seen in The Tinder Swindler and The Circle.

Catfishers are also known to exploit commonalities and affinities between you and the person they are playing. As such, they make an effort to use social media to identify your interests and even political beliefs. Connections that appear organic are curated based on available social media information elicited during those long conversations.

According to research, emotional distress is highest among victims of romance scams than other types of scams because of the feelings of foolishness, betrayal, isolation, and lack of confidence left after they disappear. Romance scams had a massive surge last year and topped the list of dollars lost per the FTC. These victims, similar to other crime victims, need our support.

This was written in collaboration with Scripps College Research Assistants Archa Dileep and Hannah Lak.