Assignment #2: My Catfish Confession (Michelle Chen)

Catfish, Melissa Henderson (20)

For years Melissa Henderson slipped into her alter-persona, Abby Johnson.  Abby was a fake persona—taken from a Myspace photo of a petite, skinny, blond, teen girl from Ohio.  Abby became getaway for Melissa.  Abby was a person Melissa wanted to be.  For Melissa, being Abby was freeing.

But Melissa was committing a crime. The crime is deception. Deception by Fraud. She wasn’t Abby, but used Abby to get close to Jarrod Musselwhite.  Melissa played with Jarrod’s feelings as they talked on Facebook and on the phone.  Melissa withheld truth from Jarrod making him think she was Abby when she really wasn’t (and Abby isn’t real). 

But why would she do this to a boy she liked?

Link: http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/relationship-advice/my-catfish-confession

Dr. John Suler would say Melissa was disinhibited from acting like this, because of invisibility coupled with dissociative imagination. The anonymity of the internet allowed Melissa to become Abby. The invisibility of the internet gave Melissa the courage to become Abby, because she did not have to worry about others seeing past the computer screen.  The dissociative imagination comes into play when the internet provides her the ability to separate her online actions from her in-person lifestyle and identity.  Through the internet, Melissa can feel less vulnerable about being Abby, because whatever she says or does cannot be directly linked to the rest of her lives. In a sense, Melissa compartmentalized Abby into a being a part of her without acknowledging that she needs to be accountable to her actions as the fake Abby.  For a time as Melissa catfished Jarrod, Melissa couldn’t own up to the fact that she wasn’t Abby and the one Jarrod liked was Abby.

But when she had to face the truth that she is, in fact, not Abby and that she cannot continue catfishing Jarrod, Melissa was forced to be responsible for her actions.  She deleted Abby off Facebook, off Myspace, and off cyberspace.  She broke the news to Jarod and there is no more separation between her online person and her offline person.  Likewise, Melissa is no longer disinhibited from her behavior online as she now learned to own up to her actions and realized that she doesn’t need Abby to be liked—her personality as Melissa is enough.  She knows now that she does not have to escape to Abby when problems offline occur.

However, Melissa is not just the criminal, but also a victim.  She, herself, was victim to her own catfishing and lies.  This piece is not meant to blame Melissa for her actions. I am just trying to explain her actions—stating the facts, not intending to hurt anyone.