Here's How MTV'due south 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 us after last week'south episode that the MTV reality hit "is well-nigh breaking through to people and getting them to see themselves and understand their decisions and their actions." That's a self-congratulatory way to talk almost the Zeitgeisty bear witness in which Joseph and fellow cybersleuth Nev Schulman solve cases of online identity fraud. It's also the truest way, because Catfish is not just out to expose people lying almost their bodies. Similar all other reality shows, it's super contrived, merely mayhap not in the ways you might retrieve. Here are the 8 important things Vulture learned about how Catfish gets made afterwards a frank conversation with series executive producer and MTV senior vice president of news and docs Marshall Eisen. Remember of it not as destroying the magic only as proof that all that anxiety is existent, which makes Catfish just plain expert Telly.

The liars get cast outset.
Every bit y'all might take surmised by now based on production logistics alone, this happens near of the time. MTV'southward casting application get-go asks, "Practice yous have a secret or something to confess to your online partner? Have you made whatever fake online profiles?" before information technology asks if you feel like your online crush is lying to you. "Information technology's often the catfish we hear from first because they're looking to unburden themselves," Eisen explained. "It'due south not e'er the case, but information technology probably happens more than people realize." Take for example the season two episode "Mike & Kristen," which began with Nev and Max receiving a letter from Mike (subject line: "Separated by less than 40 miles"), request for their help to connect him with the daughter he'd met on Facebook and spent the concluding iii and a one-half years falling in love with. In fact, it was Kristen who wrote in request to get on the show. To retrieve: Kristen was revealed later in the episode to take been involved in a car accident that left her physically handicapped, kicked out of school, and and then depressed that she gained 130 pounds. Mike had been in that location for her after the accident, though he thought she looked like someone else, and she wanted to come clean. The get-go matter she said to Mike when he showed upwards to her door with Nev and Max wasn't a surprised "Hi … " but an "I'm sorry." Producers haven't "felt compelled" to construct an episode that starts with the POV of the catfish just even so, merely reserve the right to practice so in the future. Eisen said that from a storytelling perspective, it ultimately doesn't matter whom producers hear from beginning — the hopeful or the catfish — "because we're non doing an ambush show."

Everyone signs a waiver to appear on-camera before 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 adult female they had discovered had been lying to Nev about who she was. Catfish the Television set evidence doesn't piece of work that way. "We can't exercise that and won't practise that," Eisen said. Producers are in touch with all parties, albeit separately, to conduct background checks and to brand sure everyone is onboard to film earlier Max and Nev are brought in to practice their excavation. (So, in the example of Mike and Kristen, Mike agreed to let producers construct the episode as if he had written in to Nev and Max without knowing what the event would be.) Most people don't need much convincing to participate, even if they're the ones being caught in a lie. "Lying is a very difficult thing to practice," Eisen said. "It takes a lot of energy. About of them feel relief saying, 'Oh, I can cease this.'" This explains why the catfish is normally 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 proper noun Cassandra) had been defenseless catfishing non only online boyfriend Craig but Craig'south sister and her friends. (Craig wrote in to the show first in this case.) When Nev, Max, Craig, Craig's sister, and the crew showed up to face up Cassandra, she was non dwelling house. Eisen said it happens. "If this had been our offset season and we hadn't had a lot of feel, we might have stopped shooting there," he said. Just since producers had already spoken with Cassandra and gotten her okay, they felt somewhat certain she would eventually plough up, which she did. Simply had she decided at the last minute to tell the crew to get lost? "Nosotros would have. That would have been the stop of it," Eisen said. "We never know 100 pct for sure if the catfish is going to go through with this, fifty-fifty if they commit to filming. That's why there is a lot of tension in those scenes when nosotros pull up for the visit because nosotros're all waiting for the day when the catfish volition not answer or change their mind." That hasn't happened yet, but if and when it does happen, Eisen said production is prepared to pack information technology up. "They're existent people and they're exposing themselves, making themselves vulnerable, and we're never going to force them to do it," he said.

Nev and Max are kept in the dark more than than anyone else involved.
 Beyond the producers overseeing each episode, Nev, Max, and about of the crew take no idea where each story will take them. Producers, of course, have mapped out the beginning and ending, only as far as getting from A to Z, Nev and Max do real legwork to connect the deceived with the deceiver. In last calendar week'due south episode, "Antwane & Tony," said legwork led them down the wrong path. (To exist fair, they were dealing with an expert catfisher: Carmen wrote in asking them to aid her cousin Antwane run into his mystery man Tony; in fact, Carmen had been pretending to be Tony for years every bit part of an elaborate revenge scheme.) "Our whole mantra for the guys is, 'If you can't figure it out, just go with information technology and run across where information technology takes yous,'" Eisen said. In "Antwane & Tony," "they're completely wrong and they lead the hopeful into a situation they didn't see coming, and they feel really bad about it. It'southward a total surprise to them what'due south going to happen. Sometimes they go really flustered by what they come across." And boy, did they let Carmen have it.

It can have Nev and Max a long time to crack a example.
 "Nosotros edit the investigations down. They can exist grueling," Eisen said, laughing. "In that location take been very, very long days where Nev and Max are trying to effigy it out, and we can't aid them." Producers practise their own trial and error investigations prior to filming to get some idea of how long information technology might take Nev and Max to get to the bottom of a fraud, but their estimates aren't always on point. "The guys are improve at it at present, but it's not e'er obvious how to scissure these things. We've condensed what's taken them ten hours in some instances into 5 or six minutes, but we endeavor to prove that information technology was hard."

Enough of people want to catfish MTV at present.
 The show'southward popularity has given way to a lot of people faking their stories "only to see if they can fool us," Eisen said, but one time the fact-checking begins it's not difficult to tell who's lying. "We just take to work harder to brand sure they're existent, which we didn't have to do at all in the starting time season," he said. "It's just a pitfall of being more of a known affair." Yous've been warned, faux catfishers.

The stories have gotten pretty dark.
 Most of the requests to appear on the prove go along to come from people who want to figure out (or make a confession about) their online romances, and the prevailing theme of those stories continues to exist people not feeling great nearly how they await. This season, MTV wanted to get away from some of that and didn't have to wait far to practice information technology. "When we saw that was repeating itself, we definitely tried to diversify, and at that place were enough of other stories to tell," Eisen said. So far this season, the strategy has resulted in two episodes about mean-spirited, "I'm merely doing this for fun"–style fraud. "We talk nearly whether or not we're promoting this bad behavior," Eisen said. "But a lot of the fourth dimension in one case Nev and Max start talking to the person lying, there'south always an underlying issue. Sometimes it takes a while getting at that place, but it's never merely a sociopath."

MTV sends therapists to encounter with everyone after production wraps.
 Sociopaths or not, anybody who appears on the bear witness, every bit Joseph told us, speaks with a therapist after filming is over. "We desire to make sure that a professional is in that location in instance the person needs it," Eisen said. "Fortunately nosotros oasis't had whatever problems afterwards the show has aired, but we demand to brand sure that people are taken care of if they need to be."

Hither's How MTV's Catfish Actually Works