Catfish: The TV Show continues to be a social phenomenon

As Catfish: The TV Show starts season 8, it’s an engrossing study of relationships, self-worth and the Internet. Explore why in this week’s Deeper Cut.

Wednesday begins a new season of Catfish: The TV Show, and it’s hard to believe that the MTV show has been on for almost seven years. But what started as a documentary spin-off has grown into an exploration of truth, lies and Facebook profiles.

For the uninitiated, here’s a promo. The show is an extension of the 2010 documentary of the same name, which followed photographer Nev Schulman as he found out the woman he had met and developed feelings for online didn’t exist.

Instead, she was the creation of a middle-aged Michigan woman, Angela Wesselman, who had 15 fake Facebook profiles. She had used the photos of a Washington model and photographer named Aimee Gonzalez to create the character Nev thought he had connected with—and when the truth came out, it was shocking, sad and thought-provoking all at the same time.

The film was so popular that it had people reaching out to Schulman with their own stories of online relationships, and in 2012 he and filmmaker Max Joseph teamed up to turn the idea into a TV show—going around the country to investigate other people’s Internet crushes, like a modern-day Holmes and Watson with a camera crew.

As Nev says in the opening credits every week, “Catfish was my story. Catfish: The TV Show is yours.”

The adventure has lasted more than 100 episodes, spawned four international versions and one semi-spinoff, and made celebrities of Nev and Max (who exited the show after season 7 and has been replaced by a rotating lineup of co-hosts).

Celebrities have been on the show. Celebrities have been victims on the show. The series was parodied on Saturday Night Live with Adam Levine playing Nev. It’s become a phenomenon, an addiction, and once you watch it, it’s not hard to understand why.

Of course, there’s the entertainment aspect. TV viewers get caught up in the mystery and want to see that moment where Nev knocks on someone’s door and reveals who the person behind the profile really is.

It’s constantly jaw-dropping to find out that the model a guy thought that he was talking to is actually another guy, or that a girl’s best friend just created her dream date in order to get revenge for a perceived slight, or that the whole thing was real and there’s a chance at a happy ending. Whatever way the episode goes, Catfish is always surprising.

But peel back that first layer of “WTF” and “OMG,” and you find a much deeper program that’s a lot more than your average reality TV. Having been through the experience himself, Nev has used that to become a guide to other people as they follow in his footsteps.

He’s sympathetic, encouraging, and able to get them to open up and be vulnerable about some of the most intimate and painful things in their lives—partly because he’s been vulnerable in a documentary that millions of people have seen, and partly because he’s a genuinely good person that you feel like you can confide in.

That’s what begins to bring forward more than just a whodunit. These are people who have put so much into an online relationship that they’re willing to go on TV and potentially be embarrassed in order to meet their other half. They’re people who struggle with feeling lonely, being bullied, trying to get over a heartbreak and finding solace in a Facebook friend. There are reasons why they’re connecting with someone on the Internet in a way they haven’t in real life.

On the other side, there are all kinds of stories. The catfish could be someone’s best friend who has been hiding feelings for them, but never knew how to tell them. Or someone’s soon to be ex-friend who’s getting back at them by breaking their heart. Or a total stranger, who just isn’t what they appear to be (hint: if they’re a model, they’re almost certainly not a model). And yes, there have been those terrible, cringe-inducing people who are playing the field or have created fake profiles to swindle money out of people. But luckily, those are few and far between.

For those on this wild ride from the comfort of your couch, Catfish: The TV Show prompts as many questions as it gives answers. Of course, viewers want to know how someone could fall for some of these things (although the show does a great job of explaining that). But then there’s all kinds of things to think about, many of them involving a little self-reflection.

If two people genuinely connect with each other for months or sometimes even years, but then one of them isn’t who they say they are, is the connection also fake? After all, this person spent years talking to you and listening to your problems, even if they weren’t the person you thought they were. Through each person’s story, important issues like bullying, finding your self-worth, struggling with your self-image and even coming to terms with your sexual orientation have been tackled.

And what about the people whose images were stolen to make these fake pages? And how powerful is the Internet, that it can create these longstanding relationships that people invest so much of their time, emotion and sometimes even money into? Ultimately, each episode of Catfish: The TV Show is less about the whodunit, and more about the who. And what viewers can identify with in each of their stories.

The icing on the cake is the bromance—or is that host-mance? It was an absolute pleasure to watch Nev and Max, who were the perfect pair to do all this emotional digging. They worked so well together, while also having the kind of witty friendship we all wish we had. They were everyone’s BFF, except for the people they were unafraid to put in their place. Audiences saw the same bond between them, that they were helping other people search for.

While the show has a different feel without Max, Nev’s other co-hosts (like NBA star Nick Young) have all been good in their own ways; many of them are fans of the show, so they all understand that Catfish is about people’s real lives and not just something fun to do. A few episodes have even featured Nev working alongside his wife, Laura.

In that sense, Catfish: The TV Show is still Nev Schulman’s story. TV audiences have watched him grow from a single dude in New York to someone who’s married with two kids. A whole portion of his life has unfolded over seven-plus seasons, and watching him evolve from the earnest guy getting his heartbroken into the mature man who’s now rooting for and helping other people is a great story in and of itself.

But Hollywood could never write a story like some of the things Nev has come across in his Catfish journey, from “weapons of mass destruction” to the guy who still thinks he’s dating Katy Perry. It’s amazing how many stories there are of people who get caught up in online relationships—some who find real connections, and others who just get caught.

And by putting those stories out there, Catfish hasn’t just made an addictive TV show, it’s also made us savvier about the Internet, made us think about some of the most basic questions in life, and made us want to be better people. Sometimes, all it takes for people to look deeper into themselves is just to hold the mirror (or the camera) up.

New episodes of Catfish: The TV Show air Wednesdays at 8:00 p.m. on MTV. Find the latest Deeper Cut every Wednesday in the Entertainment category at FanSided.