Three Step Recs - Catfish The TV Show Review

Kat and Ryley picked 3 episodes of MTV's Catfish to review! Would you watch more of the show after hearing about these? Let us know!

Both: [00:00:00] Hello,

Kat: and welcome to

Both: Easy Bake Takes,

Ryley: the podcast!

Kat: Where we read you the one star reviews of your favorite movies and more. But this time we're not gonna talk about movies. Also, I'm Kat.

Ryley: And I'm Ryley.

Kat: We didn't practice any of that, so.

Ryley: It's different. It's a new episode of something new.

Kat: This is new for everybody.

Ryley: Yeah.

Kat: Welcome to Three Step Recs, where we pick a TV show. Sometimes we both like the TV show or both have already seen it. That's the case with this one. But with other ones, sometimes the other one hasn't seen it. So, we pick three episodes, we watch them, we talk about them, and we kind of discuss if this TV show is worth watching after only seeing three episodes. So, What TV show did we mutually pick for this episode?

Ryley: It's a random one, but [00:01:00] it's- It's Catfish.

Kat: The TV show.

Ryley: The TV show.

Kat: And also just by the end of this episode, please. Give us some feedback on this because it's new. Let us know anything that was bad, you didn't like, or anything you did like, or anything you'd wanna see for these TV show episodes. So, if you don't know Catfish, the TV show didn't start out on its own. It was initially Catfish the movie or the documentary that came out in 2010 and focused on the host of the TV show, Nev Schulman, and his experience with being Catfished. It was made by Nev, his brother Ariel and their friend Henry Joost, who weirdly enough directed paranormal Activity three and four. And also, another weird coincidence, I was watching the show, The Watcher while I was doing my research for this, and he was the executive producer on the show, The Watcher.

Ryley: Oh.

Kat: And he's, He's like been around in the film industry for a while, so you might recognize his name. Yeah.

Ryley: It sounds like it.

Kat: But when they transitioned to the TV show, they brought in [00:02:00] Max Joseph.

Ryley: My favorite.

Kat: Who- yes. I founded an interview with Max in 2013 by Veronica Toney in the Washington Post that Nevs older brother Ariel was friends with Max and they'd been friends since they were about 15. And the three of them grew up together in New York. And whenever they were in talks with Nev, when MTV was in talks with Nev for developing Catfish the TV show, he asked Max to be in the pilot with him, and then he basically just became the co-host of the show with him. It's so cute that they've known each other for so long too.

Ryley: Yeah, it's very sweet.

Kat: It is. Okay, so there's eight seasons, at this time of recording, there are eight seasons of Catfish. I think it ended, I keep seeing stuff where it ended, but like on Wikipedia it has like a to present on, its like runtime.

Ryley: Hmm.

Kat: So I don't know if they're planning on bringing it back or not, but there are 210 episodes of the show.

Ryley: Maybe they finished a season and they're not sure if they're gonna.

Kat: Probably, probably, they were probably because they switched co-hosts as you'll, I'll [00:03:00] talk about a little more in a second. But they switched co-hosts. Maybe they didn't get a good response from the new co-host being in there. It seems like people like her, from what I've seen.

Ryley: I mean, it's the same show. I do love Max and I don't, I probably will miss him once I start, start watching those seasons with the new cohost.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: But, um, The show's still the same. You're still gonna get the same content. Really.

Kat: Yeah. And it seems like, uh, from what I've read, cause I haven't watched the seasons with her in it, but from what I've read, it seems like her and Nev have good energy too.

Ryley: That's good.

Kat: Like it's not, there's, it's, there's no lack of chemistry between them.

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: But for just a little bit of the premise and how the show came to be. So the documentary Catfish coined the term Catfish. And at the time this was defined as a type of deceptive activity involving a person creating a fake social networking presence for nefarious purposes. Now, it can also be used to say that someone has been editing their pictures online or enhancing them, or in some way presents images of themself that do not look like them in real [00:04:00] life. It's sometimes used in a joking way. I think it used to be, A lot more thrown at women by men in a mean way. But I think people use it more jokingly. I've seen a lot of people use it towards themselves.

Ryley: Yeah.

Kat: But in the original Catfish documentary, Nev discovers that the woman he had been in an online relationship with had not been honest and describing herself. And the intention of this show is to help people who are emotionally entangled with someone who they have not met in person, and they investigate whether or not the person is legitimate and if they're a catfish and nev specified in a Zap2it article in 2012, that their intention is not to expose the catfish by pulling the rug out from under them, saying, quote, "whether or not two people are totally lying to each other and it turns out to be a huge, huge disaster, that's only the first part of the story. We wanna know why they are doing it, who they are, what they are feeling, what led them to this place and why that resonates with thousands of other young people who have the same feelings, who don't have someone to talk to or don't know how to express themselves." end quote.

Ryley: And that's what the show really, I think, [00:05:00] shows there's a lot of empathy. With that show, they, they, a lot of times there's sometimes where.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: It's just, it's, it, it's kind of hard, but most of the, most of the time there's a lot of empathy and the chance for someone to not only apologize but kinda see where they're from or like where they're coming from with catfishing.

Kat: Yeah. They, they try to dig into it a little bit and get to the root of, root of why they might be doing it.

Ryley: Uhhuh.

Kat: And I think that's something that's really good about the show, cuz you can see there are people who don't wanna talk about why they're doing this.

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: Or they, they don't wanna go further into it. And you can really just see them trying. And I think that's something that's really effective about this show.

Ryley: Me too. Yeah, I agree.

Kat: So the show currently is hosted by N Schulman and Cammy Crawford. Uh, Max Jo- Joseph was the co-host for Seasons one through seven. About halfway through season seven, he left to pursue his filmmaking career. And his spot was filled by various co-hosts that such as Elle King, Kamiko Glenn, [00:06:00] Nick Young Slick Woods, et cetera. One of those was Kamie Crawford. It seems like he, after leaving, he's mostly directed and written short films, and he directed a documentary released in 2021 with HBO Max called 15 Minutes of Shame that looks at public shaming in modern day culture. So it seems like he's a much more of a documentary filmmaker, and you could tell by his role on the show that he's.

Ryley: Yeah, well, yeah. This is all documentary, Well, reality tv, but documentary, I mean, I think they blur the lines a lot of the times with that. So I could, I totally see that.

Kat: I think this one counts a little more towards documentary.

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: Than most reality TV shows might.

Ryley: Oh yeah. Like, I'm not saying it's Jersey Shore.

Kat: No. But so Kamie Crawford co-hosted for a few episodes in season seven before joining the main cast in the eighth season. And like Nev, Kamie was also catfished. She was catfished by a close friend of hers, which I found in an interview with her with Showbiz Cheat Sheet.

Ryley: I love the cheat sheet. Cheat sheet gives me all the dirt.

Kat: Mm-hmm. But before Catfish, she was actually Miss [00:07:00] Teen USA 2010.

Ryley: Oh wow.

Kat: And then in 2015, she received a degree in communications and media from Fordham University and pursued career in TV and hosting. Uh, she was signed as a model with JAG models. She was on an episode of Hell's Kitchen in 2012.

Ryley: As like a, like a judge or something or?

Kat: I don't know. Maybe she was brought on because she was Miss Teen usa.

Ryley: Okay.

Kat: She doesn't really seem to have a culinary background from what I found, so I don't think she was a contestant.

Ryley: I mean, I would say yes, I'm, I don't know anything about food, but if I can go eat.

Kat: Yeah, and get yelled at by Gordon Ramsey. Maybe.

Ryley: Hopefully not.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: If not as long, as long as I'm cooking, I don't wanna cook for him. That'd be awful.

Kat: Oh yeah. No, no. Uh, but she was also on the Rip the Runway TV special in 2011, which, featured designer fashion and music performances. And then I found an interview with her from July of 2022 from the Skinny Confidential Podcast, and they asked her how she was discovered slash you know, how she got on Catfish to begin with. And she said that when she was in college, she would do local news segments and she [00:08:00] would constantly be sending her reel out to different places. And eventually she planned on moving to LA from New York. And the same week that she was going to move, she got a casting call from Catfish and they asked her to guest host two episodes after Max's departure. And she was a fan, but she was skeptical that it was just like a scam. But she went to go film it anyway. And then-

Ryley: That last Catfish thing really like stuck with her.

Kat: I guess so, yeah. I mean, me too. I would.

Ryley: Yeah, I'd be, Yeah, I'd be skeptical too.

Kat: They, the show eventually asked her to come back and eventually Nev asked her to become the permanent guest host because of the chemistry that they had together. So Nev is the one that asked her to be the guest host.

Ryley: That's nice.

Kat: And then just a few more things. Uh, so the production of the show, according to casting director Michael Esposito, they would receive more than a hundred applications a day. And often the Catfish was the one that would make first contact with MTV to be on the show. Guilty conscience or?

Ryley: Yeah. Guilty conscious. Like they kind of want like, Well, they just want him like they want to [00:09:00] end it. And there's so many times in the show with so many catfish people where they say, I didn't know how to end it. I didn't know how to, to stop talking to them. I didn't know how to tell them the truth.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: And I guess is their, this is their way of doing that. I think it's so much easier to go, Hey, I'm a catfish, and then just delete the account.

Kat: Yeah. Just-

Ryley: Which a lot of them try to do.

Kat: Message them and just block them, just block them.

Ryley: That's the whole thing. Like I feel like it's so much easier than putting yourself on tv, but that's just me.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: That's just me.

Kat: You're right. One of the episodes that you picked, Max was literally like, 'why didn't she just like posted on Facebook or something?'

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: And he's like, 'idk.' Just to, for the credibility of the show Max and Nev are not given any information about the Catfish.

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: They do have to find it themselves and like try and find this person themselves. Even though most of the time the catfishes have already agreed to be on the show, they don't know when Nev and Max are coming.

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: To me that makes sense because it, they don't, they seem so calm [00:10:00] when they get there, but they're like still a little like off guard cuz they didn't know that they were coming that day.

Ryley: Yeah, exactly. There's a lot of it that makes sense. Because one, it's keep it kind of like authentic between Nev and Max trying to find the person. Cause sometimes they're way off. And like I read an article where like a producer said like, sometimes they're just so off and that's okay cuz the show's gonna go where it's gonna go.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: I don't really know how they fix it because like there's so many times where they have to travel.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: It's like, I don't, they're like, we're not gonna fly them to Florida when a person's in Washington, you know?

Kat: Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Ryley: Um, I don't know how that works specifically, but they, I did read that article where they said, um, they don't know, they have to investigate themselves. And two, it's also that thing of you can't just find someone and try, cuz you know how it's convenient in every episode where they end up finding a phone number or messaging that per that catfish going, 'Hey it's Nev and Max. We are here with so and so who would like to meet you,' and they end up meeting them and it's almost like, [00:11:00] it's almost every time, like 99% of the time they agree to meet with them.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: That just doesn't happen. And I always assumed a paycheck was mentioned at some point to them, but I'm guessing now it's because they were the first ones to write in first, so that makes a lot of sense.

Kat: I would almost be more embarrassed as the person who was being Catfished to be on the show.

Ryley: Cause you didn't even, you didn't even catch a hint.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: That's the part that I actually wanted to ask. How do they get the person who's being Catfish involved if the Catfish is the first person to write in?

Kat: They probably tell them when they write in who they're catfishing. I guess they, they would probably have to see if the person being catfished even wants to be on the show before they can do anything, I suppose.

Ryley: Yeah.

Kat: I don't know. I didn't really see much about getting the person being catfished on the show as much as I did getting the catfish on the show.

Ryley: That's the part that kind of confuses me is like, what's that process like and what's that process telling that person like and then how much is the rest of it? You know, I'm not saying, and.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: [00:12:00] I remember reading an article saying it's not every episode where that Catfish wrote in, but it is a few of them.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: Like a good majority. So it is a lot of people who are thinking they're getting catfished writing in, but a lot of them are the catfishes is writing in. So I guess it just depends on the situation. I don't know.

Kat: Nev and Max not having information. I guess they frame all of them as if the person being catfished is the one that contact them. So they had, they had to have talked to the casting director at one point, I guess is what I'm saying.

Ryley: Yeah. I'm sure that's a whole process itself.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: I remember them saying like, they will rewrite emails that the catfish sent in, or whoever wrote in to fit um, a more anonymous.

Kat: Anonymous, Yeah.

Ryley: Anonymous air about it. I don't know.

Kat: Okay. Yeah, no, I get what you're saying. Yeah.

Ryley: Yeah.

Kat: It's a good question. Cause I didn't really think about how they got them on there. Anyway, this show does not seem as nearly as manipulated as most reality TV show shows.

Ryley: Not entirely. I do think, you know, [00:13:00] uh, we'll get to that in a minute, actually. I'll bring that up.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: In one of the episodes.

Kat: Okay.

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: But the last, the last big thing I had on here was just some of the spinoffs that, uh, came from this show. There was a show called Ghosted Love Gone Missing about people trying to find former friends or romantic partners after being ghosted by them. And I watched, I think it was Danny Gonzalez, do like a video about this show. And the one episode he picked, it was like the guy that was going on there because he was ghosted, just seemed like he deserved to be ghosted. And by the time they found the girl and she explained it, That that guy deserved to be ghosted. Honestly.

Ryley: Was he creepy?

Kat: It was like he was a comedian and he did standup and he wouldn't let the girl he was seeing at the time come to do come to a standup show.

Ryley: Why?

Kat: And he like made a joke about her having daddy issues or something and it was like in very poor taste and she saw a clip of it and just like never talked to him again and like completely ghosted him.

Ryley: Oh. He's a jerk.

Kat: They play the, they play the clip and I was just like, 'yeah, I would've ghosted him too.'

Ryley: Yeah. [00:14:00] Ghosting is such a weird topic.

Kat: Cause it comes off of that idea that you don't have, you don't owe anybody an explanation ever.

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: Um, but the other show that was a spinoff from Catfish was Catfish Trolls, where internet personalities would confront trolls who had been harassing them. And it only aired for three episodes before getting canceled in 2018.

Ryley: Oh, yikes.

Kat: I can't imagine that show going very well.

Ryley: I can see that show being really stupid and really irritating.

Kat: I could see it spawning more trolls.

Ryley: Yeah.

Kat: Against these people.

Ryley: It's just. Yes. And I can't, I don't think for that show it might be a good thing, but like, I don't know if that's enjoyable for anyone else to watch.

Kat: No. It just feels a little too like, I don't know. I feel like you would come off, it's really easy for you to come off badly as the internet personality in that situation. Like you could come off as the dumb one pretty easily.

Ryley: Y- Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I see your point. And I see your point. I just feel like that's just stupid. I feel like that just that concept of that show is kind of [00:15:00] dumb.

Kat: It is.

Ryley: To literally give the attention to trolls, which is the whole reason why they're trolling. That's what they want is attention.

Kat: And that's why you should block people.

Ryley: Exactly. There you go. Exactly.

Kat: Uh, but there were some international versions of Catfish. Uh, there's a UK version that has two seasons, and I don't know if it's still going, but it said 2021 to present on Wikipedia.

Ryley: Yeah.

Kat: There's a Columbia version that aired for two seasons from 2014 to 2015. There was a Chile version that was three seasons and is 2015 to the present. I don't know if there were breaks in there. Uh, there's a Brazil version that went for three seasons over the span of a year.

Ryley: Oh. I mean, that's the thing, like this is-

Kat: They just let them all out all the whole year.

Ryley: Yeah.

Kat: They're just like.

Ryley: I mean, they must have had so much content then, you know?

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: But like this literally could, like this could be for every place on earth.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: you know, the show is-

Kat: Anywhere with internet could do this.

Ryley: Exactly. So I get Yeah, I totally understand. That sounds interesting. I almost wanna go and see like, like different versions.

Kat: The other ones were on [00:16:00] Hulu whenever I looked up Catfish.

Ryley: Oh really?

Kat: To, to watch the episodes, the other ones popped up, I think, uh, Chile's on there.

Ryley: Oh, okay.

Kat: Or maybe it was Brazil. One of those is on there. But there's also, um, Catfish Mexico, which has one season and was from 2018 to the present. I'm just guessing there's some big production bricks between some of these.

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: Or they like went on hiatus or something, or.

Ryley: Well imagine you also have to think cuz America's, America's different, uh.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: Covid restrictions in different countries and what.

Kat: That's true.

Ryley: Policies they have.

Kat: Yeah, that's true.

Ryley: If you can interact with people.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: You know, face to face or you have to go through the internet. So I'm wondering if that's part of it. Um, I don't know.

Kat: They probably just, Yeah, yeah. No, you're right.

Ryley: Cause I know Yeah.

Kat: The fish people can wait.

Ryley: The fish people can wait.

Kat: And then, I don't know if you wanted me to talk about this one real quick.

Ryley: Oh, you can, because I, I knew you did that, so I didn't really go in that area.

Kat: Uh, so I went on a rabbit hole on this one just so I could make sure I had all the information.

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: But we decided to just kind of cut it down to this paragraph. It's one of those subjects [00:17:00] that you don't really wanna speculate on a little too much.

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: But in May of 2018, the production of season seven was suspended due to sexual misconduct allegations brought against Nev, and the suspension was lifted after the allegations were found to be not credible. Um, if you want to look more into that, I suggest you doing that on your own. I dug all over the place. There's a few video essays breaking down the video that Ayissha Morgan who came out against them made, and you can develop your own opinions on it. But the m- I think MTV had a third party investigate it and they found it not to be credible. So take that however you want.

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: Some people for like a second speculated it was Max because he left during season seven, but that was quickly just, it was just a bad ti like

Both: timing.

Ryley: Yeah.

Kat: Yeah, because Ayissha did not mention a name. She like said different names instead of saying one of them.

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: But it was found as most likely against Nev.

Ryley: Hmm.

Kat: But yeah, the only, the only other thing that I, I, You might have it in your notes, the thing about the, the girl at [00:18:00] Nev's College.

Ryley: Oh yeah. Yeah. I didn't write that down though.

Kat: Yeah. So I guess just to, just to be transparent, we can mention it so it's not like-

Ryley: Yeah, yeah.

Kat: We're, we're not including anything cause.

Ryley: Yeah.

Kat: So there's two different sides to this story as always, and both people have come out and said things about it. But allegedly Nev punched a girl in the face at a college party. He claims that she was trying to grab his camera and he thought that she was a dude so he like punched her. She claims he like beat her up, I'm pretty sure.

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: But he got quickly taken off of the campus afterwards.

Ryley: Wasn't he expelled?

Kat: I don't know if he went to that school for, or if he was just at a party at that school, but.

Ryley: He was just there. He was just there.

Kat: But it was Sarah Lawrence. Uh, so I don't- He punched somebody and.

Ryley: Yeah, he did, He did do that.

Kat: He did.

Ryley: He did do that.

Kat: He did do that. But that's all I have for my notes. Did you wanna?

Ryley: Yes, I, for background information, I do have a fun little fact to share.

Kat: Cute, fun.

Ryley: So, [00:19:00] and this is from the website. I don't know where this big link came from, but it, the title of this article that I saw is How Did the Term Catfish Come to Mean Internet Imposter? And it was by, uh, Natasha from hot 104seven.com.

Kat: Mm-hmm. Is this talking about the, the husband of, uh, the Catfish from the documentary?

Ryley: Mm-hmm. So where the turn came from comes from the original, the documentary about Nev finding his catfish. So, um, and they quote, Natasha quotes in this article, 'It's a moniker, originated from a metaphorical anecdote angela- Angela's husband, Vince used to describe her in the doc.'

Kat: And Angela's the Catfish that was Catfishing Nev in the documentary.

Ryley: Yes. He says ' when that live codfish were shipped in vats from Alaska, Alaska to China. They were paired with catfish to keep them active and thus maintain the quality of the fish. Angela then is his catfish. She makes the [00:20:00] lives of those around her interesting. By extension, she catfishes Nev and Vince's history lesson according to the Boston Globe is rather fittingly a myth itself, uh, circulated by fiction writers Henry Nevinson and Charles Marriot in 1913.'

Kat: Okay, That makes, that makes sense. It seems a lot less nefarious than the way that it ended up being used after the documentary.

Ryley: Exactly, and, and I don't think, um, her husband was trying to lie. I think you just probably heard that and.

Kat: No. Yeah. Yeah.

Ryley: Just applied that to her. And it still makes sense. It still applies. Like even, even though it's a myth, it's still.

Kat: It sounds like a dad story, you know?

Ryley: It does. Exactly. So it still applies like the catfish.

Kat: It's so interesting, like, I wanna, you've said this before, but I do wanna do the documentary one day.

Ryley: Oh yeah. I would want that to be like, that's on our list at some point to do.

Kat: It's a good documentary.

Ryley: It really is. And it's, there's so many moments where it's so cringeworthy.

Kat: Oh yeah. [00:21:00] Oh yeah.

Ryley: It's just awful.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: And I, You know what's funny? I watched that documentary years ago.

Kat: Yep.

Ryley: And I started watching Catfish and didn't realize they were the same people. I thought they were. I thought they were basing it off of it. I didn't know Nev was-

Kat: The catfished one.

Ryley: W- yeah, exactly.

Kat: I remember being excited for the premiere of this show because my sister and I had like watched the premiere of the documentary on mtv.

Ryley: Oh my God. Uh, so my next subject is like, what works with this show? And in my opinion, I think it's a lot of, it's the drama. People love the drama. I think that's why I kind of label as reality. Because it is, yeah.

Kat: It's, it's real people, real stories. You know? It checks the boxes.

Ryley: Yeah.

Kat: But it also has that like air of- it needs the drama.

Ryley: Yeah, exactly. And I think also the the investigation style of it, of like tracking down someone. And I think it's very interesting that way. I think people learned a lot.

Kat: And I learned everything I know from Catfish.

Ryley: Yeah. Like trying to, finding people, linking to [00:22:00] their accounts. Finding who they're talking to.

Kat: Reverse image search like.

Ryley: Yes, exactly. This show is perfect with people who love drama and gossip.

Kat: And snooping.

Ryley: And secrets and snooping. Absolutely. I think what else works with this show, but not only just like the shock factor and the snooping and like that all works and that's all great, but it's just like also there's a kindness to this show.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: Most of the time.

Kat: Yeah. From Nev.

Ryley: Especially- Nev's- and I wanna talk about them in a second. Yeah. Well I was talking about now Nev is such. Neutral person in the show.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: Max can be such an instigator.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: And so, and could really just nail down on people. Like.

Kat: Yeah. He's-

Ryley: like hard.

Kat: He's, he'll like, analyze them in a second, be like, 'So you're doing this because of this'.

Ryley: And that's why I love him. That's why I love him. He's so real. He's so.

Kat: He's saying everything Nev can't.

Ryley: Exactly. And that's why, and that's why they work well together.

Kat: Mm-hmm. [00:23:00]

Ryley: Because you can have the wild card that.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: And then there's Nev who's very neutral. Calms the situation down when it gets too crazy. Wants to hear from both sides.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: Definitely. Even from like people who are being catfish, like he doesn't really ask for their understanding, but like he does is like, Hey, let's go hear them out and let's go.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: Let's go talk to, let's get closure.

Kat: He allows them the choice to 'Do you want to talk to this person?'

Ryley: Yes.

Kat: I think that's nice that they at least like get a choice and they aren't like forced to go talk to this person.

Ryley: Oh, no. And for what I know from the show, no one's forced to do anything.

Kat: Yeah. Even the, even the catfish, Like.

Ryley: Even the catfish people cuz Yeah. And he's even nice to them. A lot of the, a lot of the times he is, There's some, there's some cases where someone's just being a jerk.

Kat: Yeah. He he'll hear them out at least.

Ryley: Yeah. He'll still hear them out.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: Like they'll, there's still gonna be a conversation. There's still gonna be digging of like, 'why do you do this?'

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: And, and you get to hear that, you know, like some people are just going through a really rough time.

Kat: Mm-hmm. [00:24:00]

Ryley: And this is what their escapism was.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: Or this is what they did. And there's an understanding with that. A lot of times there's a lot of like talks of like, you know, 'let's find you help. They always go like, This isn't the answer.' Yeah. 'What you're doing is hurting other people. It's probably hurting yourself as well.'

Kat: Exactly.

Ryley: It's very understanding. There's a kindness to the show most of the time.

Kat: Mm-hmm. They try, at least. They approach it that way.

Ryley: They do try. Exactly. It's not like. And I think that's what it is at the end too, is like, it's not. Like, just go bash this person for, you know, being horrible or something. But it's like, it's, um, it's nice in that way.

Kat: I think another thing that's part of that is they give the catfish a chance to kind of redeem themselves too, a little bit.

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: And as much as they can.

Ryley: As much as you can. And there's a lot of times where I'm like, I kind of just feel bad for that person. I don't think they're, And like, I don't think a lot of the catfishes or the people who catfished were even bad people.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: I think they were just, you know, they just kind of did not okay stuff, but they, you know, they [00:25:00] learned from it.

Kat: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Ryley: That was for what works. And then I guess what we like is like the same, this was the same thing I was saying.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: The show shows the human side of people.

Kat: Oh yeah.

Ryley: And we all make mistakes and we all do, you know, not so smart things.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: And we hurt people sometimes, but I think we, It can be fixed, it can be redeemed.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: You can apologize, you can stop what you're doing and take accountability.

Kat: Exactly. They try their best to show how somebody could end up like that, could end up catfishing somebody.

Ryley: Yeah.

Kat: Or end up in the catfishes place at the end of like every single one. Every person's always like, I'm just not gonna get on the internet for a while. Or like, I'm not gonna befriend somebody I've never- haven't met in person on the internet.

Ryley: Or start a a relationship I've never met with someone over the internet.

Kat: Exactly. I think it taught a lot of people in our age group a little bit more about being careful on the internet.

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: But could you imagine, Cause there's some episodes where it's actually that person and like they're not actually a catfish.

Ryley: Yeah.

Kat: Could you imagine being so hot that somebody's like, [00:26:00] 'Hmm-'

Ryley: 'You can't be real.'

Kat: 'You can't be real. There's no way.'

Ryley: That was so funny. Well, a lot of times when, when they're doing episodes like that and there's spec-, there's like suspicious behavior. Like, Oh, their webcam never works so they can't FaceTime or, or talk on the internet, or 'Hey, we plan to do this and they never showed up.' Like, you know, like that. And it's like, this has to be a catfish cuz what, what person who's saying they are who they are would do just a shitty thing like that, you know?

Kat: Likes you so much that they wanna talk to you, but isn't finding a way to talk to like, you know, like, Cause I've seen people like jump through so many hoops just to like talk- to somebody who's even just an internet friend. Like they're not even like a relationship.

Ryley: Yeah, exactly. And a lot of times, I'm not saying all of them, but just like the few ones I'm thinking of, like, they're just like, most of the time they're just shitty dudes, they're shitty dudes. And more than likely, and they won't say it, but I'm betting it's because they have a girlfriend. They already have a girlfriend or they have a, they already have a [00:27:00] significant partner.

Kat: Or they're talking to a bunch of people, or like.

Ryley: They're talking to a bunch of people. They're not catfish, they're just,

Kat: They're just shitty. Yeah.

Ryley: They're just shitty.

Kat: They're just a player.

Ryley: They're shitty people.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: Exactly. So even though it's not a catfish, it's still like it, it almost makes it more shitty.

Kat: Mm-hmm. Is there anything you think does not work with this show?

Ryley: Um, I'm sitting here thinking about it.

Kat: I think they like have pretty much all their bases covered. You know.

Ryley: I mean, the show, and I have a formula that I wrote down.

Kat: Okay, let's hear it.

Ryley: So the formula is like, basically like, you know, they get the email, whoever needs help.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: Sometimes it's a catfish, sometimes it's. You know, normally it's someone who wants to find out if they're being catfished.

Kat: Exactly.

Ryley: They get in contact with that person. They meet the person who sent the email. We get to hear about their, who this person is, what's going on with them, why they're meeting people online, how they met this person online. They show a picture of them who it is, their messages, which I find very revealing, [00:28:00] like in the show. Cause a lot of times they're reading, they're going through them and reading. Oh my gosh. Okay.

Kat: I would die. I would die.

Ryley: I would die. I'm like, that's the one part of the show. I'm like, I, I was a participant. I'd be like, You are not reading, You are not reading what I've written to someone else.

Kat: I'll send you screenshots of ones I pick out.

Ryley: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But no, because Nev will just grab the phone and start scrolling out and that gives me so much anxiety.

Kat: Yeah. They look through the, the interactions and then what next?

Ryley: You know, give detail about what this person says, who they are.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: Nev and Max head to a coffee shop with free wifi cuz Nev is cheap and will not.

Kat: Or like the hotel wifi or something.

Ryley: Exactly. They'll, he, they only go to three star hotels.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: That's like the max will go to.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: Which is so funny.

Kat: That is really funny. And I understand, especially at the beginning.

Ryley: Yeah, exactly. Especially at the beginning cuz like, you know, it wasn't as big.

Kat: I, I can't believe that they give him, they give them much of a production budget other than like airfare and like hotel and I'm.

Ryley: Yeah, exactly. Cause I can't imagine [00:29:00] anything else is that much expensive.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: Other than paying for crew and equipment and.

Kat: And you don't need that much crew either.

Ryley: No, you really don't. It's, Yeah, exactly. Nev and Max do their investigation, they figure out some stuff. Sometimes they don't at all. It just really depends on the situation.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: Uh, then they take, what they find, they go back to that person. They let 'em know whether they're being catfished or not, or.

Kat: What they think. Yeah.

Ryley: What they think. And then they get in contact with the person somehow through a phone number they found, through messaging them.

Kat: Usually, you know, the person who is being catfished has some sort of contact.

Ryley: Yeah. Or sometimes they find a phone number and they get in contact with 'em, or they message them and they give them a number. They arrange where to meet up, where to go. Either at their house or It's always, sometimes, sometimes it's always in a park.

Kat: Yes.

Ryley: And uh, they meet the person. There's always that tension of waiting. You know, like whether Nev's walking up to the door, it's always very tense. Whether Nev's walking up to a door or waiting in a park and a car pulls up and they're like, 'Is that the person? Is that the person?' [00:30:00] And then the big reveal.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: Is it a catfish? Is it the person we're talking to? Is it someone they know? There's so many different circumstances.

Kat: Yeah. So many different outcomes and.

Ryley: So many different outcomes. And, and then tones down to like, why did you do it? What reasons, what was your reason?

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: Are they apologetic? Do they regret it? Are they going to work on themselves and not do that anymore?

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: Does a person that got catfish forgive them? Are they gonna, are they gonna move forward with their friendship? Are they just probably not gonna, Is it just gonna fizzle out? Probably most of the times it does. But yeah, and that's generally the show and then they have a catch up at the end and you get to know what they're doing and if, if they're in contact with one another or not.

Kat: And sometimes there's ones that, they're not any of the ones we picked, but there are ones where I did not see the person who got catfished keeping in contact with the other person.

Ryley: It is interesting. And I think it really just depends on how, I guess how authentic the, um, friendship or the [00:31:00] relationship was and just how much they enjoy talking to one another.

Kat: And I guess like the recovery.

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: Do you trust this person after that and whatnot. But do you wanna go ahead and we can start talking about the episodes that we picked?

Ryley: Yes. Do you wanna go first or?

Kat: Yeah, we can, we can just go in order. So I guess that would be the episode I picked first.

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: So I picked season one, episode four, titled Jasmine and Mike, and it aired in December of *2012. So I'll just give a quick rundown on what happens in this episode. So Jasmine has been texting Mike for two years and thinks he would be perfect stepfather to her son. And although they live like 15 minutes apart, they've never met up in person. And she's talked to him on the phone like twice but they were very short. Mike turns out to be a girl named Missy, who Jasmine knew in real life. And Miss- Missy and Jasmine, they like met at the mall and then they started talking and realized they were dating the same guy, Uh, Josh, aka Triggs. And Missy created the fake profile of Mike to keep [00:32:00] Jasmine from being around Josh, you know, so she could have him. And in the epilogue of the episode, you see that Jasmine has put her interest in finding romance on hold, instead she's focusing on spending time with her kid and focusing on school. And Missy has made the decision to adopt her niece because it's brought up that her- her sister was in prison, so she adopts her niece and became her legal guardian. And Missy stopped catfishing people according to her, and Jasmine and Missy have- did not have contact after they appeared on the episode. So I found a few things on a Reddit AMA. If you don't know what that means, it's an asking me anything. And people who are like from TV shows or podcasts are just like, are from something big or some like big news event that happened, they'll go on the subreddit for that topic and like say like, Ask me anything and they'll just reply to people's questions. So I found one for Catfish. So someone with the username, Tucker Baby from nine years ago, they asked whose story from the first season affected them most, either positively or negatively, and why? And Max replied and [00:33:00] said that the story that affected me most from a season was probably Missy and Jasmine. He said that it caught them off guard and they were horrified when Missy walked out and confronted Jasmine the way she did, he said it was straight out of a soap opera, like a bad soap opera or something. And he said it was hard to believe that someone would catfish someone else out of revenge or malice. And Jasmine was really broken up about it and they were too. And then when they were alone with Missy, she seemed so smart and together, and she has so much more potential to be a better person, is what Max felt about it.

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: The user BoundBy1nk, from nine years ago asked what is the worst case you guys have ever had to deal with?

Ryley: Oh.

Kat: And Nev answers probably Jasmine and Missy's episode. They had no idea about Jasmine's past with Missy and never considered that she would've done all of that to get revenge on her and felt bad that they unknowingly set up Jasmine for such an embarrassing and upsetting situation.

Ryley: Yeah.

Kat: Seems to be the episode that a lot of people got hooked on this show from.

Ryley: Yeah, I can understand that.

Kat: So I, I guess, [00:34:00] do you have any thoughts about this specific episode with Missy and Jasmine?

Ryley: Missy, I remember Missy's story being really, really sad and that's why I was trying to talk about earlier is like there's, you know, deeper reasons why people do this and yeah, she was angry.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: She had a lot of probably anger and sadness.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: and grief.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: Going on. And I understand why you would take that out on someone else.

Kat: Yeah. It's not the, it's not the ideal option, but you could see how somebody would get there.

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: Cause personally I would've catfished Josh.

Ryley: Yeah. No kidding.

Kat: He was a two timer.

Ryley: No kidding. But I think it's just one of those things where I think what Max is like, you really, you feel for that person and you really, you really do. And did you ever see the They actually did where they now?

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: Episode and they went back to both Missy and Jasmine and they got to see where they were. And I think they both had babies at the time, or at least had like children that they were raising.

Kat: It's probably her niece that she had adopted.

Ryley: [00:35:00] Exactly. So it's nice to know that they're doing better.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: They're happier.

Kat: They turned things around for themselves and.

Ryley: Absolutely. And it's really nice to know that. It's very sweet. So I think with that episode, it's funny at first, Especially when it comes out she has the flower. She throws the flower at her, so.

Kat: 'She didn't take my flour. I threw it at her. It's sad, huh?'

Ryley: It's, yeah, it's, it's goofy at first and you're like, Oh, 'this is just dumb.' But you know, like there's a reason why she did it and it's not

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: It's not for anything good. And it's not, it's nothing I, you know, I would say she feels proud of now, and.

Kat: Yeah. It's somehow you, you ended the episode feeling bad or like empathizing with both of them.

Ryley: Yeah. Both. Oh yeah. Especially both of them. Because, you know, uh, Jasmine didn't do anything really.

Kat: No. For missy at first you're like, Wow, she is unhinged like this this is unhinged behavior, But you get to see why she's doing it.

Ryley: Yeah.

Kat: You understand her as a person more, and I guess that's what I meant by like, they, they give them a chance for redemption and they give them a chance to like be humanized a [00:36:00] little more.

Ryley: Yeah.

Kat: Instead of just being this anonymous-

Ryley: Villain.

Kat: Villain. Yeah.

Ryley: Yeah.

Kat: Yeah, exactly. This episode had a lot more like heart.

Ryley: Heart. Yeah.

Kat: Than is expected. But I think that goes for a lot of the episodes too.

Ryley: Oh yeah. Like this is a, this is just a good example of it.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: there are gosh countless of episodes.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: Where it shows basically the same thing.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: Like countless, I would say good majority of them.

Kat: Yeah. Also, I just wanted to mention that it's sad, Huh? Is like a, is a meme that's, that used to be used from this episode.

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: And also there's a TikTok audio from this specific episode where Jasmine's asking Missy, 'You did this for what?' And then Missy just goes, 'Why not? Why not?'

Ryley: 'But why?'

Kat: 'But why, why not?' So you've probably heard that TikTok audio, if you're on TikTok at all, but there are a lot more, uh, memes and stuff from this show than people may realize.

Ryley: Oh my gosh. I-

Kat: The next, the next episode as an example.

Ryley: Literally my, the episode I [00:37:00] picked, I picked like one of the most memeable ones.

Kat: We both managed to do that. Like-

Ryley: They're, but they're so good.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: They're really great episodes. And I, you know, and if we're gonna do this, we might as well pick the really popular episodes.

Kat: The hard hitters.

Ryley: Yeah. The, yeah, exactly.

Kat: But. You know, the reasons why Missy did this and like her reasoning behind it. I just, I would've catfished Josh. Clearly you were being two timed, you were being two time.

Ryley: It's not J- it's not Jasmine's fault.

Kat: This was for me, one of the, the episodes I remember the most as well.

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: But the next iconic episode

Ryley: Is from season two episode- I don't know what happened. I don't know if an episode got deleted or something, different places will say it's episode 10, different places will say episode nine, but it's the um, Artis and Jess episode. Description of this episode, it's five months ago, Artis met Jess, a blonde beauty, online artists and Jess each were in relationships, but believe they'd found true love. Artis is finally ready to meet Jess in person, but is Jess everything that she says she [00:38:00] is? And Jess is not, Jess is actually Justin and this episode's kind of weird. I'll start from the beginning. So like Nev and Max get- go and meet Artis who's actually, who is in a relationship with his girlfriend, they have children and they're not happy. And Nev and Max make him quote unquote 'break up with her.'

Kat: Or be honest with her

Ryley: or be honest with her about what's going on so they can continue to move forward.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: And so they do, and they're realizing all these images from Jess are from like different websites. And this is not a real person.

Kat: Porn.

Ryley: Porn! They're reaching out to other people that they've also never met.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: and they know that- that she's not real.

Kat: Don't pick the location of the this tiny ass town that has like 20 people if you're going to be a fake person.

Ryley: Exactly, exactly. I actually forgot where it's located in.

Kat: Illinois. It's in Illinois. It's like starts with an M. It's like miss something.

Ryley: So yeah, they figure out. This is not a real person. So when they do meet at a park, it's [00:39:00] Justin and he comes in at an absolute 10.

Kat: 11 even.

Ryley: And it's the first thing he does is come forwards to all them and just start slow clapping. So that should give you an indication.

Kat: 'I'm wearing the pants in this one.'

Ryley: Gets in his face, he starts, he goes, You come over here. Like, he is so aggressive and awful.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: And it's, it's laughable. Nevs laughing and that and

Kat: Yeah, it's uncomfortably funny.

Ryley: It's uncomfortably funny. And to me, when I saw it, It's a little, it's a little acted.

It's a little scripted. I'm not saying the show scripted it. I do believe he, that person did. I think that person knew what they were doing.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: And based on what I actually found about this episode.

Kat: He was making tv.

Ryley: He, yes, he was making tv. So what's interesting about this episode is like when I was trying to find where they are, where are they now? Um, I found a Tumblr post that was not really an article, cuz I don't know if anyone gave [00:40:00] the time of day really. But-

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: Cause the, by the time this came out, it was like a year after the episode aired.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: But it was a video of Artis and Justin, they're hanging out in a parking lot in front of a car in front of a Mustang that neither them own. So they're hanging out in front of this car and they, it's like a 13 minute video of their, of them ranting or raving. They, they were friends before the episode aired. They knew each other.

Kat: Oh.

Ryley: They planned the whole episode.

Kat: Okay.

Ryley: So it's like one of those early ones where they probably didn't catch it.

Kat: Cause I was about to say.

Ryley: The way he comes up to him is so, like, there's no way this person exists in real life. It's so, it's so fake. When you watch, rewatch this episode to me, I was like, of course they know each other and the. Artis is reacting is like, 'Oh my gosh. Oh, oh wow. I can't believe that.' You know?

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: It's so, They're not good actors. This episode is just really funny in that way. The tumblr post was like they had been friends.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: They [00:41:00] faked the episode, they're hanging out with each other, so they, they do know each other and they go on to like make crazy comments and allegations specifically towards Nev and mtv. It's never towards Max, which is so funny to me.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: They expected jobs to come from this episode and they never got them, which is very funny that

Kat: What?

Ryley: They just thought they were good.

Kat: Your act- Your acting was not good. I'm sorry.

Ryley: It was not that good. I'm sorry. They both thought they were gonna get jobs from MTV. They would constantly be calling and texting Nev why they had their, his number. I'm not sure, and I really don't believe that they ever did. I think they had a number from MTV.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: I don't think it was Nev though. I think they thought it was Nev.

Kat: I could not believe that they would, Nev would give out his real number to these people.

Ryley: Exactly. Or, yeah, no kidding. Or like, I really don't believe that. Cause I know he does message people and I can't remember specifically in this episode. I think he does call him, but there's no way That's his, his personal phone number and he's just gonna start giving out to, He, He just has a second cell phone.

Kat: It's so easy to set up like a Google [00:42:00] phone number.

Yeah, exactly. Probably has a Google phone number.

They're free. They're literally free.

Ryley: Exactly. Or like the fact that Neve never blocked him.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: Like, you know he just would just never, But they would spam Nev's phone and ask for like why they didn't have jobs or like when they were gonna fly, when they were gonna get flown out to LA to start working.

Kat: What do they think the show- It's a reality TV show about Catfish. It's not.

Ryley: I don't know what they thought.

Kat: It's not an acting gig, but that makes a lot more sense why his like girlfriend immediately started working things out with him after, or 'working things out with him.'

Ryley: Exactly. Like, 'oh, they magically got back together and it's all working out fine.' Yeah. With Artis. Yeah, exactly.

Kat: I guess that that changes some of the notes that I had about this episode a little bit.

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: But like, the way that he comes in, I guess this is his acting.

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: But it's like the epitome of like a white man with high levels of undeserved confidence.

Ryley: Yeah.

Kat: I could believe that somebody would seriously act like.

Ryley: Yeah.

Kat: The way he did. Like I understand, like if this were real, I understand the energy of wanting to like [00:43:00] teach a cheater a lesson, but Max, whenever he gets left alone with him, and Nev like goes, he's like, I don't wanna talk to this guy. He literally is like, I don't wanna talk to this guy . I, I too would not wanna talk to this guy.

Ryley: Yeah.

Kat: And like, I appreciate that if this were real, that he was admitting how crazy he was being. And I guess that kind of lends to the feeling I was getting of like this weird sense of like self-awareness that he has.

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: The dog thing is fucking hilarious. And they're like, 'Whose dog is that?' He's like, 'Does it matter?' and he's like, 'No, no. Whose dog gets that?' And he's like, 'Doesn't matter'.

Ryley: 'Doesn't matter, come in.' Come in. I said that too cuz I laughed. I tackled when I, Cause it's such an odd interaction.

Kat: It's insane.

Ryley: It's so odd. It's like a bit, It's the most Mac always sunny in Philadelphia thing.

Kat: Yeah. Do you know, do you remember like Filthy Frank, that YouTuber, Filthy Frank?

Ryley: I think so.

Kat: He's Joji now. The the musician.

Ryley: Oh, I do. Oh, I do know who you're talking about. Yeah. Uhhuh.

Kat: Yeah. It's that type of 2010s YouTube personality.

Ryley: Yeah.[00:44:00]

Kat: That he has where it's like, this is how I described it when I was watching it. I said the weird alt-right pipeline incel type of guy who thinks he's being self-aware, but is actually just coming off like a psycho, Like he knows why he's like this and has an idea of how people perceive him, but doesn't adjust his behavior in response to that. And he just leans into who he is because he believes that there's no fixing who you are.

Ryley: Yeah. In that video, and I didn't watch all that video, but if you Google Artis and Jess, where are they now? From Catfish. It's like the top link that's a Tumblr post. The video is attached. He makes comments about like, like he just makes weird like, like it's like home- it's like toxic masculinity, homophobic kind of things. Like he makes fun of Nev for doing yoga cuz he says yoga is a woman thing for them to decompress for. So.

Kat: Maybe he should try that because.

Ryley: Exactly.

Kat: Seems like he's got a lot of things to get out.

Ryley: He says some other offensive stuff, like this guy isn't a good dude. Like he is like, I don't know what exactly to call him, but he is like, go read the [00:45:00] transcript like it says it right there.

So

Kat: before you told me the information about it being planned.

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: The profile of Jess is literally like the epitome of like what a man in that era thought that like a dream woman was.

Ryley: Yeah.

Kat: So that's just fucking hilarious that he's also just clearly a toxic person. I don't know how he is now, but.

Ryley: Oh, he is. And he was like saying like in the transcript. So he would try to be, he'd be spam calling Nev instead of Nev answering, it'd be someone named Dave.

Kat: Mm-hmm. It's probably like a producer or something.

Ryley: Yeah. Cuz it's not gonna be Nev. You're not calling Nev. And he called him like, he was like, it'd be some and quote unquote like 'queer named Dave.' So he was, he's not a good dude.

Kat: No.

Ryley: He's very offensive and horrible. And they made weird allegations saying like how they knew Nev was cheating on his girlfriend for some reason. They were saying, Nev said weird stuff like. 'What did you expect from this job for you to, Or like, when are you gonna get flown out to la?' He [00:46:00] was all like, 'What do you expect for you to be like my pool boy or something?' And it's like, yeah, they said that, but there's no evidence of that.

Kat: Yeah, I don't.

Ryley: So it's one of those things where like, I think they're-

Kat: They're just clout chasers.

Ryley: Yeah. It's just something like really like, like I don't believe these dudes, I really don't like the whole thing was fake to begin with. I doubt any of this is real. And they're also delusional. They're very delusional in what they're wanting.

Kat: If this was real, Justin would've gotten his, in my opinion, I feel like he would've been very likely to get his ass beat.

Ryley: Mm-hmm. Like Justin especially just seems like horrible the last bit in this.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: And its like the last transcript from the video. So this is just ranting and rabing in this parking lot next to a car they don't own. And it just says the last thing, Justin makes $11 an hour and will like us all to eat a dick. So that should, that should wrap up everything we need to know about Justin and what.

Kat: Yeah, it's like the, the epitome of toxic men in the 2010s. Like.

Ryley: [00:47:00] Yeah, Delusional. Just absolutely delusional. And like the funny, the, the big iconic line in this. In this episode specifically is where Nev goes, 'Well, you know, you're pretending to be a woman online chatting to men. Are you gay?' And they don't do that so much anymore in the show. They don't really press people like that.

Kat: They don't try to out people. Yeah.

Ryley: They would a lot during the show. And I think they had to learn like, We should not be doing that.

Kat: You shouldn't out people on tv, you guys.

Ryley: You, you shouldn't be. Yeah. You can't be doing that.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: But this was season two, so, and that happened this episode. He goes, 'No, no, no, I'm not gay. I'm not gay.' And he goes, Well, you're doing. You know, he explains it to him. He's like, 'Well, you got me there.'

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: 'So maybe,' he goes, 'so maybe.'

Kat: But that, yes, that is very, um, Mac from Always Sunny.

Ryley: It's very Mac from always sunny. And that's the big iconic line from this episode. If you didn't know, if you haven't seen it like that, and like I've seen that gif for years and years and years being used.

Kat: Very popular meme.

Ryley: 'You got me there.'

Kat: What I [00:48:00] wanted to know from this episode more than anything was what happened to Nev's Foot?

Ryley: Oh, I don't know. Like, uh, he runs marathons a lot. Like he's a very athletic guy, so I'm-

Kat: Probably sprained his ankle.

Ryley: That's why I'm thinking like he did something to it.

Kat: Cause it was just wrapped. It wasn't in a cast or anything.

Ryley: No, it sounds, it sounds like he hit it against something or something, or maybe just like stepped on it wrong. I don't know.

Kat: Yeah, it's probably just like a, a, a light spray and then he just has to keep weight off of it. I don't know, but I just thought that's like such a funny little detail in this episode that he's on crutches the whole time. Like.

Ryley: Exactly. Well, he is telling the story of what happened as he's brushing his teeth, so you don't know what he's saying. And then it's like there's little captions of what he is saying. It's very funny.

Kat: Yeah. Now that I know that this was fake, that makes a lot more sense because this is like the most, like-

Ryley: Over the top encounter with a catfish. Cause a lot of times they're really like, they're pretty shy or sometimes they're confident, but they're not saying a lot. You know, like.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: This is over the top. Like, he runs up to 'em to like, like, almost like he's gonna fight him and like, it's so goofy. It's like a bit.

Kat: [00:49:00] It is that, this is what I meant to mention with my episode that I was talking about like way earlier.

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: But I really like that Jasmine and Missy don't even get the chance to fight before, like Nev steps in.

Ryley: Steps in.

Kat: And Like steps between them and is like, we're not doing this. Like, I appreciate that this show doesn't try to bait a fight from these people.

Ryley: Yeah, exactly. It's, that's not what they're here for. And like also, like I can understand from that, from this show. Like that's gonna be a liability kind of thing. I think everyone has to sign a waiver though, so if something did happen, it wouldn't be on them. But like, they don't want that, that's not the content that they want.

Kat: If they wanted it, they would let it happen.

Ryley: Yeah, exactly.

Kat: Because that gets, that gets people watching. But it's not, it's not as like, just to use for an example, like a show like Maury where they're literally like bringing these people on and exploiting the ship they've been through just to get them to fight on television.

Ryley: Exactly. Mm-hmm.

Kat: Like this is like they're showing a window into a world that maybe. As an audience member haven't seen before or like you wouldn't have access to otherwise in all of the episodes, different areas of [00:50:00] the country, different types of neighborhoods, different places, different kinds of people. You're getting a view into their world, but they're not trying to show them at their absolute worst, you know?

Ryley: Exactly.

Kat: They're just showing them as they are and they're not gonna embarrass them on TV more than the fact that they, they're catfishing somebody, you know?

Ryley: Definitely.

Kat: But yeah, that's, that makes so much sense that they were faking for clout.

Ryley: Like I'll send it to you.

Kat: If I was in that situation, would've beat the shit outta Justin . He's just so, Seems like such an annoying person. But if he's already your friend, you're probably a little bit like him.

Ryley: Yeah, exactly. That's why. And like he immediately walks away.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: You know, too.

Kat: It's so easy to get him to stop being antagonistic.

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: Suspiciously so, yeah.

Ryley: And when you're just watching it, it's like this is not normal behavior. It's over the top. And you would think like, Oh, the show is up to this. And like, I guess not, it's like, it's just something they didn't catch that they knew each other and they were planning it.

Kat: It's really not hard to add a disclaimer after the fact.

Ryley: Yeah, that's true.

Kat: [00:51:00] A little surprising that MTV's never from what you've found, said anything about them faking this, you know.

Ryley: Yeah.

Kat: I love the, the Tumblr username. 'Oh, no, they didn't.'

Ryley: I didn't even see that.

Kat: But I guess we would, We'll never know what the show really thought of it or how much involvement they had. Cuz it seems like they screened people pretty thoroughly before putting 'em on the show.

Ryley: Yeah. And who, who knows, Like, and again, this came out a year after their episode aired, so it, it's like.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: Kind of old news. I mean-

Kat: I guess.

Ryley: I can see how they wouldn't care or like, 'Okay, whatever they wanna put this out.'

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: Cause like they, and then this video, they say a bunch, like they say a lot of things.

Kat: Yeah. Or maybe, maybe they were embarrassed and wanted to make it seem like they were faking it. I don't know.

Ryley: I don't know. Yeah. And then I can move on to the next one.

Kat: Okay. Let me just say, before you start, I was like, I had never seen this episode before.

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: I was like, Oh, it's like they both, they both reached out about it and then I kept going and I was like, never- I literally wrote, Nevermind cuz I was like, Oh, this [00:52:00] is a nice change of energy from the other two. And then I literally, the next note under that set is, nevermind.

Ryley: Yeah, this is one of those episodes where I think it's, and I think Nev says it as he's yelling at him, like, 'You are the worst case scenario when anyone thinks you're being Catfish. You are everyone's worst.'

Kat: Yeah. Max says it.

Ryley: Max. Sorry, Max says it, but I'll get into that. So season six, and that's the season that I'm on right now.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: Season six, episode nine. It's Ari and Lanham.

Kat: Yep. It's such a what a weird name to pick as a fake name.

Ryley: I've never seen that name before until now, in this context, so. So for the first time ever, Nev and Max receive emails from opposite sides of the same online romance. Each concerned that the other may be a catfish. The guys are taken aback when one side decides to follow through with their marriage plans. So basically what happens to this episode, uh, this young girl, I think she's like 22 or 23 years old. She's pretty young.

Kat: I think it was the, the same with like Jasmine and Missy. They were both really young too.

Ryley: Mm-hmm. [00:53:00]

Kat: There's a lot of very young people on this show.

Ryley: There, there are. And that's for reasons, you know, like, you know, just young, young people meeting each other online. Thank you. They're meeting other young people.

Kat: It's a wake up call situation, you know?

Ryley: It really is this, if anything, this episode, a wake up call for anyone.

Kat: This one kind of made my skin crawl a little bit.

Ryley: And that's why I picked this one. Usually they don't.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: Usually they're not, There are episodes though.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: This one is. So yeah. They get two emails from the same online relationship from Lanham and Ari. And just to break it down, Lanham is not who he says he is. He's the actual Catfish. So it is one of those signs where the catfish came forward first.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: Or I guess at the same time as Ari.

Kat: Yeah. Yeah. And he says, Cuz we, we talked about that a little bit before, where there's some that like, they, they come forward because they're like, they don't know how to stop.

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: And he, he was saying that that's why he was coming forward to like, just get to stop doing it.

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: And just a little nugget insight [00:54:00] for us. This is, this takes place in Texas, in dfw, Uh, not too far from where we grew up.

Ryley: It's actually in the neighborhoods of where we grew up.

Kat: Yeah. We were like 15, 15, 20 minutes from this area on a, on a good day. Uh, but this is like 30 minutes outside of Dallas just seeing them, it pop up and them going Grapevine, texas.

Ryley: Yeah. It's, And I did not mean to, when I picked this episode.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: I forgot it took place here.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: So when I was watching the episode, I was like, Oh wow.

Kat: Oh shit. That's the water tower and everything,

Ryley: Oh, I know the road they were driving on.

Kat: Yes.

Ryley: Like, it, it's like, it's pretty shocking.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: And the amount of times they've came to Grapevine in Grapevine, they, they went there twice to Grapevine for two different cases of catfish.

Kat: Oh my God.

Ryley: So frequently in Texas for this show.

Kat: There's nothing else to do in Grapevine. You can only walk around, Southlake town square so many times and go to the lakes so many times. You know. It's just a suburb.

Ryley: Exactly. It really is. There's not much, I mean, there's to do with, there's to do, [00:55:00] but yeah.

Kat: The cities are like, 30 minutes away, but it's.

Ryley: Can't go there every day.

Kat: It's, It's expensive to go do anything in the cities.

Ryley: It's expensive, there's traffic. Exactly.

Kat: Oh, the traffic makes it not worth it.

Ryley: Oh yeah.

Kat: It's just the Texas way. You won't drive 40 minutes to go to Dallas, but you'll drive three hours to go to Austin on a, on a whim.

Ryley: Yeah. No kidding. To me, that's the whole thing. Growing up in Texas, driving 40 minutes to get somewhere is pretty like that's pretty normal.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: That's just something you do.

Kat: Most people do it for work every day.

Ryley: Yeah. That's the other thing too. And I did too, I did that for years.

Kat: You did!

Ryley: I drove 40 minutes to work. I drove to work. That did not pay enough for me to drive to that place of work.

Kat: Exactly. I remember that was your most pissed off era.

Ryley: Oh, it was a horrible job too. God.

Kat: Traffic is on your top 10 of like most hated things you could experience.

Ryley: Yeah, I don't like driving. I don't mind driving if it's fine, but most of the time it isn't. So.

Kat: Yeah, I always find it funny in shows when they use like the biggest city that's in proximity to a place to say where they are.

Ryley: Uhhuh.

Kat: [00:56:00] Cause whenever they were in like Georgia or they're in Illinois, they're talking about these tiny city names.

Ryley: Exactly.

DFW is the Dallas Fort Worth area in between all that area. So it's including all the suburbs. But like they should have just said grapevine.

Kat: Yeah. I know there's more to this episode than just where it took place, but I just, the minute I heard.

Ryley: I didn't even mean to.

Kat: Cause he says- he lies and says that he lives in Austin and that is the most DFW thing to do to make yourself sound cooler, to say you're from Austin.

Ryley: That's three hours away. You can't just keep lying about that. It's not like a, if he, if he said Dallas and he is from grapevine. Okay. All right.

Kat: Fine.

Ryley: Okay. Lying. But it's a lie. But it's more realistic. It's more, it's like, okay, he's lying about. Austin? Dude, you don't even, That's not even the same area.

Kat: I got very excited. I get excited when stuff I know is on tv. I was like, I've been on that road. I've seen that water tower.

Ryley: It's so weird seeing a TV show where it was film where you grew up. Cuz you're like, That's so familiar.

Kat: [00:57:00] Sorry. I know. I just went on a, we went on a very big hometown rant there. But like initially in starting this episode I was like, Oh this is such a nice change of energy. Like I am so hope- no, immediately.

Ryley: No, it's, this is probably on the top list of most cursed episodes.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: Of, of like what the catfish ends up being and just how horrible and creepy they are. Cuz there's a few of them like that.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: I wouldn't say a lot, but there are definitely a few.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: And this is definitely one of them. And I just recently saw it and I thought it would be.

Kat: Yeah. This one, as I said, made my skin crawl. I had a fucking pit in my stomach when she said that she sent him nudes.

Ryley: Oh. Oh. And that's the horrible part.

Kat: And the other girls too, like.

Ryley: Mm-hmm, it's really gross Ari's like 22 or 23 years old, she's talking to this guy and they both, they both emailed them to come and investigate.

Kat: His brother quote unquote did.

Ryley: His brother did. And that's the weird part is like, he wants them to invest. He, he claims she's the catfish. He doesn't even say I'm the catfish. I've been catfish [00:58:00] this girl. I wanna meet her.

Kat: Yeah. It's like his brother's concerned about him being catfished.

Ryley: Exactly.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: And what we find out, yeah, she was sending him pictures and.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: And it's really awful when they figure out he's in Grapevine, Texas. And they go to see him and turns out to be a 43 year old man.

Kat: Older than her mom.

Ryley: Older than her mom. Who lied he said he was- he was 25.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: He is not, he's 43. His real name's Marcus. He does not have a brother.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: And I think he made up lies about like his brother dying of cancer or he got him confused. He's such a moron. He forgot whether one of them died in a car crash or one of them, or if he died in the cancer. So he told her both.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: He's such a moron. He couldn't even keep his story straight.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: And so he doesn't have a brother.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: So none of that happened. He just lied.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: And he was talking to other girls at the time too.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: Doing the same thing to them.

Kat: There's one, she said she ended it like two weeks prior to them calling her.

Ryley: Yes.

Kat: I think at one point he like he's talking to 'em, he's like, Yeah, 'I lied about the brother.' And [00:59:00] both Nev and Max are like, 'Yeah, we could tell from the very beginning that this wasn't, that there was no brother.'

Ryley: Yeah. It's like-

Kat: We're six seasons in dog. Like we know.

Ryley: Exactly. We know. And this guy comes out and usually it's really funny with usually how they stand cuz sometimes some are closer than others some and it's usually the catfish who's like standing far back, you know, stuff like that. I'm pretty sure in this one, Nev and Max and Ari are standing at least six feet in between this guy. They want- this is, it's so horrible like it's, there's such a grossness to this.

Kat: Yeah. I could tell that she just immediately had a pit in her stomach and wanted to throw up.

Ryley: I would want to throw up if that's what came outta the house. And that's the person that.

Kat: She sent him nudes. Like even that alone.

Ryley: Exactly.

Kat: Even if she didn't send him nudes and was just like being open with this person, like.

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: I'm not in any way. I just wanna say I'm not in any way blaming her for sending nudes.

Ryley: No, no, no, no.

Kat: I totally understand. Because she was under the impression that this was a different person.

Ryley: Exactly.

Kat: And I, [01:00:00] I would throw up,

Ryley: I would throw up. Uh, in, in this episode, it's one I I love Max cuz of his reactions to people, and this is one of, this is one of my favorites cuz he, he literally gets to say, 'you are everyone's worst fear.'

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: 'About being catfished.'

Kat: 'You're the bald 40 year old man that everyone is worried that is on the other side.'

Ryley: And it's so valid. Like if I was that man, I don't know how he continued to stand there and listen to that.

Kat: I mean, he-

Ryley: That's like, Nev is absolutely digging into him.

Kat: He goes back inside at one point.

He's like, I'm done. Like, he just goes back inside.

Ryley: Yeah. Cuz he's awful and he, yeah.

Kat: Yeah. Cause you know, you try, they try to, you know, they try to empathize with him. They try to like, try and see his perspective, but he still thinks he has a fucking chance with Ari.

Ryley: He gets her-

Kat: He got a, yeah, he got her a ring. Like.

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: The most disgusting, manipulative part of this other than like he solicited nudes from these girls is he tries to guilt trip her afterwards.

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: Like, she's talking about how she, he messaged her and was like trying to make her like, in her [01:01:00] words guilt, tripping her and trying to make her feel bad for not wanting him after that.

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: Why in the world would you think you even had a chance after that?

Ryley: But also it's the deception.

Kat: Yeah. You're not- she's never gonna trust you.

Ryley: You lied about everything.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: You were talking to other women.

Kat: She has no interest in dating a 40 year old.

Ryley: Exactly. It's, Sorry, it's so,

Kat: No, you're good.

Ryley: This one's-

Kat: You're good.

Ryley: Very frustrating.

Kat: I get it.

Ryley: Because this man again, Delusion.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: Absolute delusion.

Kat: No, I get, I get what you're, I get what you mean. The last episode that we talked about, if that were real.

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: That would also be like this scary level of delusion, but it's, it was fake.

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: Allegedly. Allegedly fake.

Ryley: Allegedly. Mm-hmm.

Kat: So that kind of takes out a little bit of the grossness of the situation. But this one, it's a guy who's done it to many people and.

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: The way he does it, there's no guarantee that he's not gonna do this to somebody else.

Ryley: Oh, no.

Kat: With the other people, it's like one person that they have targeted one time because they, [01:02:00] so most of the time have some personal connection to this person, or they just on a whim, Decided to catfish this person. Not out of malice, just out of entertaining themselves. This guy is getting stuff out of it. That's so disgusting and so delusional.

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: And so predatory and manipulative and disgusting. Who's to say he hasn't been doing this to girls younger than 18?

Ryley: Exactly.

Kat: Just because these girls are of age does not make it any less creepy. Like it'd be creepy if this was a 39 year old woman he was doing this too.

Ryley: Yeah.

Kat: And I don't think there was any redemption to be had with this guy.

Ryley: Exactly.

Kat: Cannot empathize with this person. This is just a disgusting creep who should have gotten help a long time ago instead of projecting it off into other people and manipulating other people and ruining their lives and ruining their day and making them feel disgusting and making them unable to trust people in the future.

Ryley: Exactly. And in this episode you can really tell Nev really taking a step back.

Kat: Yeah. He's struggling to be.

Ryley: He is struggling to be kind cuz like I think [01:03:00] he even has some jabs for 'em.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: Throughout, like he is not being nice to him.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: And I think he's really just desperately trying to show him like, You are being delusional, you are being creepy. You lied about so many things.

Kat: Yeah. There's no coming back from this.

Ryley: And it really just shows too that he, he didn't realize or couldn't see that what he did was wrong.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: He doesn't think what he did was wrong.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: Cause he thinks him and a can still get be together.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: They can still, uh, manage it.

Kat: 'If she just knows who I am, then maybe she'll see me for who I am.' No. At one point he says to her, 'Why, just because I'm not, that I'm not the picture doesn't mean that any, all the conversations we had' or whatever, like he tries to flip it on her on camera. Outside of like-

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: Him trying to guilt trip or over text, on camera. And she's like, 'I don't fucking know you, dude.' You're lucky she's even here talking to you for more than five seconds.

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: Most people would've turned around and gotten in the car. People have done it for less on this show.

Ryley: Yeah, they have. It's an old dude sitting in [01:04:00] his gross boxer there's at home, like, it's just like really awf- Nev- or Max really hits it on the head.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: When yelling at him.

Kat: Yeah. He asked him, he's like, 'Are you gonna go to therapy over this? Are you gonna get some help?' And the guy's like, 'No. Just by exposing myself, I think I've done enough.' And he's like, 'Okay.'

Ryley: Yeah, exactly.

Kat: He's like, 'You don't think there's a deeper problem here?' and the guy's just like,' nope.'

Ryley: Just a moron.

Kat: It's yeah.

Ryley: Just a moron.

Kat: There obviously is something deeper, but this guy's not at the point with himself that he even cares if there is.

Ryley: There's not enough self analyzation going on for him to even come near that.

Kat: He thinks that just because he lied about who he was, that was the, the extent of.

Ryley: Or his image, not even about who he was. Just his image.

Kat: Yeah, exactly. I was not expecting that from this episode. And I'm glad you picked it because I think that's an important thing that with this show, people forget that that's actually a thing that can happen.

Ryley: Mm-hmm. Cause like at the end of the day, like they're always hoping,

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: it's the person they're talking to and sometimes it is.

Kat: [01:05:00] It's rare, but it, yeah.

Ryley: It's rare. Yeah. That, So that episode and I tried to look up where they are now. I couldn't find anything about either.

Kat: Yeah.

Ryley: I'm guessing there's not a lot going on with.

Kat: It's a more recent one too. Yeah.

Ryley: It is a more recent one. Yeah. So I, I don't really have it. I didn't really have anything for it.

Kat: Yeah, that, that makes sense. Cuz the other two that we picked were pretty old.

Ryley: Years had gone by, so. Yeah. There was like some updates.

Kat: So if you haven't seen Catfish and you were to go watch those three episodes, would they be compelling enough to make you keep watching?

Ryley: Yeah. Let us know. And here's the thing, this show is such a variety. Every episode's different and it's own way. Sometimes they get repetitive.

Kat: Mm-hmm.

Ryley: But a lot of times there's some different stuff happening. It's a great comfort show. This show is great to just throw on when you need just something on the background and just to tune in every now and then.

Kat: And you could tell as the seasons go on that they kind of figure out, we have to keep it a little more interesting and who we're bringing on and stuff too.

Ryley: Mm-hmm.

Kat: But this is kind of the opposite of what we [01:06:00] plan on doing in a future. It'll be more so like shows that the other one has never watched before, but we will occasionally do one that we've both seen and we'll both pick episodes and whatnot. But if there's any TV shows you wanna suggest to us, we'd love to do an episode like this with a show neither of us have seen before. That would be really fun. So if you have any suggestions, You know the drill, you can reach us at Easy Bake Takes on Instagram. Also, if you wanna give us any feedback on this type of episode or our regular movie review episodes, feel free to DM us there too. We have a website with our transcripts that is Easy bake takes podcasts.com. And we also started putting a just overview of all the reviews that we give and we also have them on letterboxd. Also Easy Bake takes on letterboxd. That's where you can find us. Follow us over there if you have an account. Don't forget to leave us a review and follow us wherever you get your podcasts. And thank you so much for listening. My name is Kat

Ryley: and I'm Ryley.

Kat: This has been Easy Bake Takes Three Step Recs episode. We will be doing this once a month, but easy watching out there.

Ryley: [01:07:00] Bye

Kat: bye.