Hither'due south How MTV'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 u.s.a. after last calendar week's episode that the MTV reality hit "is virtually breaking through to people and getting them to come across themselves and empathise their decisions and their actions." That'south a self-congratulatory way to talk most the Zeitgeisty evidence in which Joseph and fellow cybersleuth Nev Schulman solve cases of online identity fraud. Information technology'south too the truest fashion, because Catfish is not just out to expose people lying about their bodies. Like all other reality shows, information technology's super contrived, but maybe non in the ways you might call up. Here are the viii of import things Vulture learned most how Catfish gets made after a frank conversation with series executive producer and MTV senior vice president of news and docs Marshall Eisen. Think of it not as destroying the magic only as proof that all that anxiety is real, which makes Catfish just manifestly good Television set.

The liars get bandage first.
Every bit you might have surmised by now based on production logistics lonely, this happens almost of the fourth dimension. MTV's casting application commencement asks, "Do you have a secret or something to confess to your online partner? Have yous made whatever faux online profiles?" before it asks if you feel like your online beat out is lying to yous. "It's oftentimes the catfish we hear from first because they're looking to unburden themselves," Eisen explained. "It's non always the case, but it probably happens more than people realize." Take for case the season two episode "Mike & Kristen," which began with Nev and Max receiving a letter from Mike (field of study line: "Separated by less than forty miles"), asking 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 honey with. In fact, it was Kristen who wrote in asking to get on the bear witness. To recall: Kristen was revealed later in the episode to have been involved in a automobile accident that left her physically handicapped, kicked out of school, and so depressed that she gained 130 pounds. Mike had been at that place for her after the accident, though he thought she looked similar someone else, and she wanted to come up clean. The first affair she said to Mike when he showed upwardly to her door with Nev and Max wasn't a surprised "Hi … " but an "I'grand distressing." Producers haven't "felt compelled" to construct an episode that starts with the POV of the catfish just yet, simply reserve the right to exercise and so in the future. Eisen said that from a storytelling perspective, it ultimately doesn't matter whom producers hear from first — the hopeful or the catfish — "because nosotros're not doing an ambush show."

Anybody signs a waiver to announced on-camera before filming begins.
In the original Catfish documentary, Nev and filmmakers Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman turned upwardly with cameras rolling on the doorstep of Angela, the woman they had discovered had been lying to Nev nigh who she was. Catfish the Idiot box show doesn't work that way. "Nosotros can't practise that and won't practice that," Eisen said. Producers are in touch with all parties, albeit separately, to conduct background checks and to make sure everyone is onboard to movie before Max and Nev are brought in to do their excavation. (And then, in the example of Mike and Kristen, Mike agreed to permit producers construct the episode as if he had written in to Nev and Max without knowing what the upshot would exist.) Most people don't demand much convincing to participate, even if they're the ones being defenseless in a lie. "Lying is a very hard thing to practise," Eisen said. "It takes a lot of free energy. Most of them feel relief saying, 'Oh, I can cease this.'" This explains why the catfish is usually already miked for sound when the hopeful arrives for the confrontation!

Only the waiver doesn't guarantee cooperation.
In the flavor 3 premiere, "Craig & Zoe," a girl named Zoe (real proper name Cassandra) had been caught catfishing not only online young man Craig but Craig's sis and her friends. (Craig wrote in to the bear witness first in this case.) When Nev, Max, Craig, Craig's sister, and the crew showed upwards to face up Cassandra, she was not home. Eisen said it happens. "If this had been our kickoff season and we hadn't had a lot of experience, we might have stopped shooting at that place," he said. But since producers had already spoken with Cassandra and gotten her okay, they felt somewhat sure she would eventually plough upwards, which she did. Merely had she decided at the final infinitesimal to tell the crew to get lost? "We would have. That would have been the end of it," Eisen said. "Nosotros never know 100 per centum for certain 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 we pull upwards for the visit because nosotros're all waiting for the day when the catfish volition not answer or alter their mind." That hasn't happened yet, but if and when it does happen, Eisen said production is prepared to pack it upwardly. "They're real 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 anyone else involved.
Beyond the producers overseeing each episode, Nev, Max, and most of the crew have no thought where each story volition accept them. Producers, of course, have mapped out the beginning and ending, but every bit far as getting from A to Z, Nev and Max practice real legwork to connect the deceived with the deceiver. In last week's episode, "Antwane & Tony," said legwork led them downward the wrong path. (To exist fair, they were dealing with an skillful catfisher: Carmen wrote in asking them to help her cousin Antwane meet his mystery homo Tony; in fact, Carmen had been pretending to be Tony for years as part of an elaborate revenge scheme.) "Our whole mantra for the guys is, 'If you tin't figure information technology out, simply go with it and see where it takes you,'" 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'south a total surprise to them what's going to happen. Sometimes they become really flustered by what they see." And boy, did they let Carmen have it.

It can accept Nev and Max a long time to crack a case.
"We edit the investigations down. They can exist grueling," Eisen said, laughing. "There take been very, very long days where Nev and Max are trying to figure information technology out, and we can't assist them." Producers do 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, simply their estimates aren't always on betoken. "The guys are better at it at present, simply it's non always obvious how to crack these things. We've condensed what's taken them ten hours in some instances into five or vi minutes, but nosotros try to show that it was difficult."

Plenty of people desire to catfish MTV now.
The evidence's popularity has given way to a lot of people faking their stories "just to encounter if they can fool u.s.a.," Eisen said, just one time the fact-checking begins it's not difficult to tell who's lying. "Nosotros just have to work harder to brand sure they're real, which we didn't have to practice at all in the first season," he said. "It'south merely a pitfall of beingness more of a known thing." You lot've been warned, fake catfishers.

The stories have gotten pretty dark.
Nearly of the requests to appear on the show continue to come from people who want to figure out (or brand a confession about) their online romances, and the prevailing theme of those stories continues to be people non feeling nifty about how they look. This flavour, MTV wanted to get away from some of that and didn't accept to expect far to do it. "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. And so far this season, the strategy has resulted in two episodes well-nigh mean-spirited, "I'thou just doing this for fun"–manner fraud. "We talk almost whether or not we're promoting this bad beliefs," Eisen said. "But a lot of the fourth dimension in one case Nev and Max kickoff talking to the person lying, there's e'er an underlying issue. Sometimes it takes a while getting at that place, just it's never but a sociopath."

MTV sends therapists to meet with everyone later product wraps.
Sociopaths or not, everyone who appears on the prove, every bit Joseph told us, speaks with a therapist after filming is over. "We want to make sure that a professional is there in case the person needs it," Eisen said. "Fortunately nosotros oasis't had any problems after the show has aired, just we need to brand sure that people are taken care of if they need to be."

Here'due south How MTV's Catfish Really Works