The World Where You Aren’t What You Post - "Catfish"

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Nowadays, when you hear people talking about “the Facebook movie,” chances are they mean “The Social Network,” David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin’s soon-to-open inquiry into the rise of Mark Zuckerberg, one of the founders of Facebook. But the description might be even better suited to “Catfish,” a documentary by Henry Joost and Ariel Shulman that caused some hyperventilation at the Sundance Film Festival last winter.

“The Social Network” is about origins, while “Catfish,” at once narrower and more universal in implication, is about consequences. Mr. Zuckerberg may be the genius who invented Facebook and cashed in on its success, but many of the rest of us live, at least some of the time, in the world he made, and on the evidence of “Catfish,” it can be a pretty creepy place.

And also one stippled with contradiction. Does social networking make us more outgoing, or more narcissistic? Does the Web foster happy communities of far-flung, like-minded people, or does it provide cover for predators and scam artists?

On the Internet, an ancient New Yorker cartoon caption observes, nobody knows you’re a dog. But everyone assumes you’re a sucker, susceptible to the pleas of hard-luck Nigerian royalty or eager to enhance your sexual prowess. You can have so many friends, fans and followers that you might not grasp just how radically alone you really are.

http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/09/17/movies/17catfish.html?th&emc=th