Catfish

Sometime last year, I watched a film called Catfish:



It's about a sort of Facebook scam. The protagonists are deceived into thinking a little girl is an art prodigy, whereas in fact, it was her mother. No money was taken, just a bit of pride lost.

It's interesting to note that the woman wasn't particularly bright or well educated, unlike the three men who made the movie. She was just simply amoral enough to take advantage of someone who wanted to believe something was true when it wasn't. The moral being we can all be deceived no matter how sophisticated or intelligent we are, probably more so.

The title of the film is taken from an anecdote related at the end, by the woman's husband, about cod being exported from Alaska to China. They found that the quality of the fish, which were kept alive, degraded over the time of the journey and were almost inedible. After some trial and error, they realised that putting in a catfish with the cod kept them active (catfish and cod compete for food) and the quality of the meat was maintained. The analogy was implied that some people are human catfish: they take advantage of other people to keep them on their toes (almost "inoculating" them, if you like) so that they do not get taken advantage of in the future.