The MTV show Catfish has had a lot of excitement this July. The show just wrapped its third season, where hosts Nev Schulman and Max Joseph investigate online relationships and try to help a person potentially find their true love. It was also confirmed three weeks ago that the documentary will be back for a fourth season. Two weeks following that announcement, it was confirmed that the show was nominated for two teen choice awards both in the category of Choice TV Reality Show Personality: Male. Here are 15 facts you may not have known about this popular guilty pleasure.
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1. Before filming an episode of Catfish begins, waivers are collected from all parties involved. This is different from the movie format when Nev showed up on Angela’s doorstep unannounced. MTV Senior Vice President Marshall Eisen admitted, “We can’t do that.” Producers will work with both parties (separately), run all necessary background checks, and make sure the people involved in the episode will be available to meet Nev and Max. This explains why the catfish already has a microphone when Nev and Max arrive. Most parties do not need much convincing to participate.
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2. Sometimes the person is not at home when the team comes to confront them on Catfish. That was the case with the season 3 episode with Craig. He was talking to a girl he believed to be Cassandra. Cassandra had even talked to Craig’s sister and her friends online. Cassandra turned out to be a girl named Zoey. Producers had approached Zoey beforehand and she agreed to the meeting. At the last minute she almost backed out. Eisen said, “We are all waiting for the day when the catfish will not respond or change their mind. They’re real people making themselves vulnerable.”
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3. MTV will send therapists to all the parties involved on an episode of MTV’s Catfish once the episode has wrapped. Senior Vice President Marshall Eisen shared this in a recent interview with Vulture, “We want to make sure that a professional is there in case the person needs it. We haven’t had any issues after the show has aired. We need to make sure that people are taken care of.” It is MTV’s goal to provide a positive experience for both people, even if it turns out that the catfish is not anything like their online persona and catches the catfishee off guard.
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4. One of the first questions asked on MTV’s Catfish casting application is, “Do you have a secret or something to confess to your online partner? Have you made any fake online profiles?” The applicants that apply yes will have a better chance to appear on the show, as it is more entertaining to viewers. The catfish will be the first person to respond because this is their first chance to come clean about a lie they have been hiding for a long time. A season two episode actually had the catfish contacting MTV to come clean with the online secret persona they had for 3.5 years.
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5. The producers will always know how an episode of MTV’s Catfish will turn out. Hosts Nev and Max have no idea how things will play out. The producers will construct the beginning and ending to an episode and it is Nev and Max’s job to connect the dots and bring the show to the ending the producers already know. Sometimes the investigating will lead them in the wrong path as was the case with the episode featuring Antwan and Tony. Antwan’s cousin was the one who wrote to MTV for her cousin and she turned out to be the one catfishing him.
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6. It may appear that Nev and Max are expert investigators while watching an episode of MTV’s Catfish, but that is not always the case. The investigative piece needs to be edited done extremely in order to put all of the needed details in a 44 minute episode. Producers will conduct their own trial and error investigation to estimate how long they think it will take the duo to crack the case. Over the three seasons, they guys have improved their skills. However, it can sometimes take them up to ten or eleven hours to find out everything about the catfish.
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7. Since MTV’s Catfish has become so popular, fans of the show have been sending in their own stories to try and see if they can trick producers into believing their tales. Once producers begin to conduct fact-checking investigations, it is pretty obvious who is really telling the truth. This was not a problem in the first season, because no one was really aware of the concept, except for those who were truly in an online relationship with someone they had never met. “We just have to work hard to make sure they’re real. It’s a pitfall of being a known thing,” insists SVP Marshall Eisen.
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8. There seemed to be a continuing trend on the episodes of MTV’s Catfish during the first two seasons. Most of the catfishers had body image issues and used an online fake persona to feel better about themselves. For season three of the reality show, producers wanted to focus on other areas. Two episodes were about catfishers who were creating fake profiles just to be mean and get a thrill out of messing with someone. Once Nev and Max are able to talk to this mean-spirited person, they find out there are many underlying issues as to why they were catfishing someone.
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9. The highest rated episode of MTV’s Catfish was the second episode from the first season. It was watched by 2.74 million people. That is the equivalent number of viewers who tune into an episode of The Vampire Diaries or Supernatural. The episode was about an exotic dancer named Trina who was being catfished by a man named Lee. He not only lied about what he looked like, but also his age and how many children he had. Trina thought she was talking to another exotic dancer by the name of “Scorpio.” At the end of the episode, Trina does meet the real “Scorpio.”
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10. The lowest rated episode of MTV’s Catfish was the thirteenth episode of season two. It was watched by only 950,000 people. The episode that was featured the following week, saw an uptick of 930,000 viewers. In the lowest rated episode, Derek is in love with “Kristen”. He is twice divorced, both of whom left him while he was deployed. “Kristen” turns out to be Chasity and actually lives a few miles from where Derek lives. She also has kids and was trying to look out for them. In the end, Derek is not interested and decides to meet people in real life only.
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11. Right around the time that MTV’s Catfish premiered, the network conducted a survey with Millenials between the ages of 18 to 24. The questions on the survey were about online relationships. It was revealed that 1 out of 4 people that took the survey has dated online and 1 out 2 surveyed knew a close friend who surfed the net in order to find true love. The survey also included statistics about online dating including that traffic to online dating sites like match.com and pof.com has tripled in recent years. Social media has made it so much easier to find a potential mate online.
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12.Catfish host Nev Schulman is a founding member of the Young Leadership Committee for the youth organization Leave Out Violence. The group’s mission is to “reduce violence in the lives of youth and in our communities by building a team of youth who communicate a message of non-violence.” The organization has been around for 18 years and has created hundreds of safety programs in both the United Stated and Canada. The group began in Montreal and expanded to New York City in 2005. There is even a presence in Israel since 2008. There are plans to expand the program to more cities in the US.
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13. MTV’s Catfish is based on the 2010 film of the same name. However, that was not the first title that was tossed around when creating the movie. Other working titles included It’s All Downhill from Here, It’s Complicated, Yaniv’s Internet Girlfriend, andMichigan Impossible. Had producers Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost chosen one of those titles, the term catfish may never been invented to describe someone having an online relationship with a person they have never met. Ariel and Henry were the team behind the third and fourth installments of the popular Paranormal Activity movies.
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14. Every year Merriam-Webster dictionary will add new words to their book. In 2014, over 150 new words and their definitions were included. A lot of the new words were technology based including selfie, hashtag, tweep, and crowdfunding. The word catfish received a new definition as well thanks in part to MTV’s Catfish. The word is a noun and is described as a person who sets up a false social networking profile for deceptive purposes. Another reason the new definition was added was due to the very public story of football player Manti Te’o’s girlfriend, who never really existed.
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15. Max Joseph from MTV’s Catfish has 13 director credits to his name. The latest is a documentary entitled, “12 Years of DFA: Too Old To Be Now, Too New To Be Classic.” The short film is about the indie record label DFA located in New York City. He was also a writer on the project. He is currently working on directing his first feature length film about a young DJ trying to put his first record together. The movie is still untitled and will be released in 2015. Joseph has also worked on commercials. One of the most popular brands he has worked with is Nike.
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