Hither's How MTV's Catfish Actually Works

In the season three premiere, hosts Nev and Max help Craig and his sister, Miriah, to uncover the truth about Zoe

Filmmaker and Catfish investigator Max Joseph told the states subsequently concluding week's episode that the MTV reality hit "is about breaking through to people and getting them to see themselves and understand their decisions and their deportment." That's a cocky-congratulatory way to talk about the Zeitgeisty show in which Joseph and beau cybersleuth Nev Schulman solve cases of online identity fraud. It'south as well the truest way, because Catfish is non just out to expose people lying almost their bodies. Similar all other reality shows, it'due south super contrived, only maybe not in the ways you might think. Here are the viii important things Vulture learned about how Catfish gets made later on a frank conversation with series executive producer and MTV senior vice president of news and docs Marshall Eisen. Recall of it not as destroying the magic merely as proof that all that anxiety is real, which makes Catfish but patently good Tv.

The liars become cast beginning.
As you might take surmised by now based on production logistics alone, this happens nearly of the time. MTV's casting application first asks, "Practice yous have a cloak-and-dagger or something to confess to your online partner? Have yous made whatsoever false online profiles?" before information technology asks if you experience like your online beat is lying to you. "It's often the catfish nosotros hear from first because they're looking to unburden themselves," Eisen explained. "Information technology's not ever the example, but it probably happens more than people realize." Take for case the flavour ii episode "Mike & Kristen," which began with Nev and Max receiving a letter of the alphabet from Mike (subject line: "Separated by less than 40 miles"), asking for their help to connect him with the girl he'd met on Facebook and spent the terminal three and a half years falling in love with. In fact, it was Kristen who wrote in asking to become on the bear witness. To recall: Kristen was revealed afterward in the episode to have been involved in a auto accident that left her physically handicapped, kicked out of school, and and then depressed that she gained 130 pounds. Mike had been there for her subsequently the accident, though he thought she looked like someone else, and she wanted to come make clean. The first affair she said to Mike when he showed up to her door with Nev and Max wasn't a surprised "Hi … " just an "I'one thousand sorry." Producers oasis't "felt compelled" to construct an episode that starts with the POV of the catfish just yet, but reserve the right to practise so in the future. Eisen said that from a storytelling perspective, it ultimately doesn't affair whom producers hear from start — the hopeful or the catfish — "because we're not doing an ambush show."

Everyone signs a waiver to appear on-camera earlier filming begins.
 In the original Catfish documentary, Nev and filmmakers Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman turned up with cameras rolling on the doorstep of Angela, the woman they had discovered had been lying to Nev about who she was. Catfish the Telly show doesn't piece of work that way. "We tin't exercise that and won't do that," Eisen said. Producers are in touch on with all parties, albeit separately, to conduct background checks and to make certain everyone is onboard to moving-picture show before Max and Nev are brought in to practice their digging. (So, in the example of Mike and Kristen, Mike agreed to allow producers construct the episode equally if he had written in to Nev and Max without knowing what the issue would be.) Virtually people don't need much disarming to participate, even if they're the ones being caught in a lie. "Lying is a very hard matter to practice," Eisen said. "It takes a lot of energy. Most of them feel relief proverb, 'Oh, I can cease this.'" This explains why the catfish is unremarkably already miked for sound when the hopeful arrives for the confrontation!

But the waiver doesn't guarantee cooperation.
 In the season three premiere, "Craig & Zoe," a girl named Zoe (real name Cassandra) had been caught catfishing not only online boyfriend Craig but Craig's sister and her friends. (Craig wrote in to the testify first in this case.) When Nev, Max, Craig, Craig'south sister, and the crew showed upwards to confront Cassandra, she was not dwelling. Eisen said it happens. "If this had been our kickoff season and we hadn't had a lot of experience, we might take stopped shooting at that place," he said. But since producers had already spoken with Cassandra and gotten her okay, they felt somewhat certain she would eventually turn up, which she did. But had she decided at the last minute to tell the crew to become lost? "We would accept. That would take been the end of it," Eisen said. "We never know 100 per centum for sure if the catfish is going to go through with this, fifty-fifty if they commit to filming. That'due south why there is a lot of tension in those scenes when we pull upwardly for the visit because we're all waiting for the day when the catfish will not respond or change their mind." That hasn't happened even so, but if and when it does happen, Eisen said production is prepared to pack information technology upwardly. "They're existent people and they're exposing themselves, making themselves vulnerable, and we're never going to forcefulness them to do it," he said.

Nev and Max are kept in the nighttime more than than anyone else involved.
 Beyond the producers overseeing each episode, Nev, Max, and most of the coiffure have no idea where each story will take them. Producers, of course, have mapped out the beginning and ending, but as far as getting from A to Z, Nev and Max do real legwork to connect the deceived with the deceiver. In last week's episode, "Antwane & Tony," said legwork led them downwards the wrong path. (To be fair, they were dealing with an adept catfisher: Carmen wrote in request them to help her cousin Antwane meet his mystery man Tony; in fact, Carmen had been pretending to be Tony for years equally part of an elaborate revenge scheme.) "Our whole mantra for the guys is, 'If you can't figure it out, just go with it and see where it takes you,'" Eisen said. In "Antwane & Tony," "they're completely wrong and they pb the hopeful into a state of affairs they didn't see coming, and they experience really bad about it. It'due south a total surprise to them what's going to happen. Sometimes they get really flustered past what they see." And boy, did they let Carmen have it.

It tin take Nev and Max a long time to crack a instance.
 "Nosotros edit the investigations down. They tin can be grueling," Eisen said, laughing. "There have been very, very long days where Nev and Max are trying to figure information technology out, and nosotros can't help them." Producers do their own trial and fault investigations prior to filming to get some idea of how long it might have Nev and Max to go to the bottom of a fraud, but their estimates aren't always on bespeak. "The guys are meliorate at information technology now, but it's not ever obvious how to crack these things. Nosotros've condensed what'due south taken them x hours in some instances into five or vi minutes, but nosotros try to show that it was hard."

Plenty of people want to catfish MTV now.
 The show's popularity has given way to a lot of people faking their stories "only to run into if they can fool us," Eisen said, but once the fact-checking begins it's not hard to tell who's lying. "We simply have to work harder to make sure they're real, which nosotros didn't have to practise at all in the commencement season," he said. "Information technology's only a pitfall of existence more of a known thing." Y'all've been warned, false catfishers.

The stories have gotten pretty night.
 Virtually of the requests to appear on the show continue to come from people who desire to effigy out (or make a confession well-nigh) their online romances, and the prevailing theme of those stories continues to exist people non feeling bully virtually how they look. This flavor, MTV wanted to get away from some of that and didn't have to look far to do information technology. "When we saw that was repeating itself, we definitely tried to diversify, and there were plenty of other stories to tell," Eisen said. And then far this season, the strategy has resulted in two episodes near hateful-spirited, "I'm just doing this for fun"–style fraud. "We talk most whether or not nosotros're promoting this bad beliefs," Eisen said. "Simply a lot of the time once Nev and Max start talking to the person lying, in that location'southward ever an underlying result. Sometimes it takes a while getting there, but it's never merely a sociopath."

MTV sends therapists to meet with everyone after production wraps.
 Sociopaths or not, everyone who appears on the evidence, as Joseph told the states, speaks with a therapist subsequently filming is over. "We want to make certain that a professional is there in case the person needs it," Eisen said. "Fortunately we oasis't had whatever issues after the show has aired, but we need to make certain that people are taken intendance of if they need to be."

Here's How MTV'due south Catfish Actually Works