TMI

"Thanks to Catfish, our lives are not boring" - Angela's Husband

"Thanks to scriptwriters, documentaries include haunting and striking quotes" - Me

It was one of those nights, since Australian Open 2011 started, and again there I was watching an intense Wozniacki game at 1am on TV. Still, the night was young so I decided to watch Catfish. The movie, ahem, well the documentary was about a guy called Nev, whose photography was admired and converted into paintings by an 8-year-old girl, Abby. And also there was the mother, Angela, which we know as the main source of communication(voice on the phone,sender of the packages etc.) between Nev and Abby. Wait, it is not finished, of course there is an older sister whose name is Megan, which our main boy falls in love eventually. Anyway, long story short, after guys decide to bust the family at their home, it turns out there is no Megan, Abby doesn't paint, and mother doesn't look like the women in the Facebook pictures. Then there are some confrontations and monologues which I really find fictional, maybe that is why the movie has 7.2/10 in IMDb which is pretty good. However, I'm not a movie critique, so in terms of accuracy, I find the movie was mostly fictional, and an extreme story which cannot be applied to the most of the Facebook users. Granted, there are lots of fake accounts which try to take advantage of people's shared information on Facebook, but still, I believe it is not a tool to create a completely strange social circle which is based on lies, it is a tool to keep people in touch and show-off and find soul mates and hit on people and many more useful functions!

Compared to the article written by Young and Quan-Haase, people tend to reveal their actual information on their accounts, whereas the movie talks about fake information and lies. In the article, we realize students use many methods to limit sharing information and protect their privacy. The main difference I found was while the movie was focused on how to take advantage of Facebook in a bad way, the article researches the methods to keep people out of your core information and provide them only with a limited profile. 

"Identity Theft is not a joke Jim!" - Dwight Schrute

It is us, out there promoting ourselves, our information, our pictures, our comments, our friends, basically whatever we upload there, it represents us. I am one of those people who has 600 friends, including ex-girlfriends and family and close friends and elementary school friends and etc. All in the same pot, seeing whatever I share, commenting whatever picture I put or get tagged. This had to stop at one point. As I changed my continent, it became more clear to see how people perceive my acts, and in my history of Facebook for 4 years, 2011 is the time when I decided to use a limited profile on most of my friends and delete nearly one quarter of my friend list. Now looking back, if I were a salesperson, I would definitely keep them all in my circle and probably spend some effort to keep in touch with most of them, just in case. Therefore, in terms of my business and client base, I would limit my profile and keep private information to myself and my close friends and family (hmm maybe not family)


It is essential to know what to share and with who. Because, it is all out there now, just because of Facebook, I can't use my mother's maiden name for bank security questions. So I had to use my favourite sports team which is Besiktas. Shit, too much information...