While “catfishing” only officially made it into dictionaries just last year, the phenomenon, in terms of online fakery, has most certainly been around for at least as long as there has an internet.
The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines a catfish as “a person who sets up a false personal profile on a social networking site for fraudulent or deceptive purposes.”
According to the infographic below from FreeDating, while only 11% of people polled a decade ago knew someone who has dated online, that number has jumped to 42% in recent times. That means a lot more opportunity for catfishers to fool others.
