CatFish

This week was quite interesting and different. We were asked to watch the documentary “CatFish”. I thought that it was an absolutely brilliant documentary, although, I was slightly skeptical that there was such a fluid story that unveiled itself perfectly in front of the camera. Either way, whether the whole story was completely true or not it was still brilliant and I really enjoyed it. It really opened my eyes to the possibilities of what SNS (social Networking Sites) can do. Here is a summary of what the documentary was about…



It begins with a photographer from New York City his name is Nev Schulman. He was successful in getting one of his photographs published in a magazine called “The New York sun”. A short time after that, he received a painting of this photograph. The amazing thing about this beautiful painting is that, an 8-year-old girl named “Abby” did it. Or so he was lead to believe. He was so amazed by this that he started making contact with Abby. He started talking to her mother on the phone and on facebook . This escalated into Abby’s sister thanking Nev for being so nice to Abby and that his praise makes her very happy. Abby’s sister (Megan) exchanged facebook information with Nev and over time this became a serious relationship as the picture of Megan were very attractive. At this point, Nev’s friend and his brother began to capture all of this footage on camera as it was the first online relationship that they had witnessed being created.

Over the following few months their Relationship grew. They became closer and closer. Always talking about the day that they will get to be together. Everything was going perfect Abby was getting her own Gallery for her paintings and everyone was happy. The next step in their relationship was that they started exchanging files that they had each created. He sent a picture that he made of the two of them and in return she began to send songs that she had sang to him. Nev never realized how good of a singer that Megan was and over time began to wonder why she never mentioned that she loved and was good at singing. At this point Nev began to get the feeling that something was wrong. He began investigating the situation further by searching the Internet to find out more information about this “Megan” girl and the sings that she was sending him.

As simple as good be after searching for the songs online he came across the exact cover songs that “Megan” sent to him on you-tube. At this point he really began to realize and question what was going on. The songs that she was saying were hers was a complete lie, so he began to question what else could be a lie and wonder exactly who was he talking to for the past 6 months. If that was me I would be extremely confused, and would have to investigate it much further and find out exactly what the story was.

And to my delight that is what they did. After doing some more research online and making a few phone-calls they came to the fact that the gallery that “Megan” told Nev that Abby was giving for her work to be hung was non-existent. The unit was empty and has been for quite some time. Nev was extremely confused (as anybody would be). At this point he three lads decided they were going to get to the bottom of this, so they decided to make the trip across America to Michigan, to the farm that “Megan” lived in.

When the arrived Nev, went up to Angela's house and at this point everything became apparent. He knocked on the door with a bunch of flowers and Angela answered the door, not to my surprise Angela in fact did not look like what she had perceived herself online. He soon found out that Angela was actually Megan, and Megan never existed. Abby, who is Angela's daughter from her second marriage, was not actually a painter, and Angela herself did the paintings. Angela lived in a house with Abby and her husband, and her husband's two severely handicapped teenage boys from his previous marriage. Every bit of Contact that Nev had made with this family was all in fact, with Angela.

They then interview Angela and the reasoning behind it, and after to listening to what Angela had to say and the way that she described her life, it would kind of give you a level of understanding as you realize how sad her life was and the reason that she did it was just the fact that she was happy to live this online life and to escape that realities and real life.

The documentary was really good and thoroughly enjoyed it. As may people in my class said after we discussed it, that you are left to wonder about how you feel. As they leave you with the impression that Angela meant no harm at all and that she has changed by deleting all of the fake stuff/profiles that she had online. The only one that she kept was her own and that she put her real picture as her profile picture. It was very enjoyable and I would recommend to anybody to watch it as it just gives you the awareness of what SNS could do!!!

Communties

The topic that we were asked to study this week is "Community"

The community that I have decided to discuss is my estate, I live in an estate called "Hamilton Place" and have done from the age of 7 (i.e. as far as I can remember back, I don't think many people can remember further back than that) I am 21 now. It is a average sized estate with 97 houses in it. Because of this fact, when I was growing up as a young lad around the estate playing football or walking around the corner to my friends houses, i used to know a lot/the majority of the people that lived in the estate. Not even just to know them by name but I knew them well enough to stop and have a chat with them. This was a community within itself. There was that sense of community, like a vibe. I had the ability to tell you the names of the people that lived in about 70% of the houses.

Two weeks ago I was attending a black tie ball on a saturday night, the problem was I had no suit, I knew that one of my god friends for years had been to a wedding the previous month. He agreed to loan me the suit that he had worn and since he only lived around the corner I decided to walk around and collect it. On the way around I realised that I did not know as many people as I used to. The number of people that have moved out of my estate and the number of new people that are living in my estate is astounding. It shocked me, I was amazed that the sense of community that I remember from when I was a young lad playing ball, getting in trouble off the neighbours, mothers out talking to their neighbours at their garden pillars was completely gone.. In fact I would struggle to be able to tell you 30% of the people that live in the estate!

I believe that the internet has played a major role in the cause of this.. People have become more incline to spend more of their spare time ingaging in online activity. Rather than physically meeting people and making small talk, its now been taking to an online setting, where people are not just making small talk they are joining for new online communities in what they are interested in and talking to people that have similar interests.