Yes, I really did get this email...

[Jools]

Hello Administrator,
The following is an e-mail sent to you through the administration contact page on "PlanetCatfish.com".
The message was sent from a guest who specified the following contact information:

Name: Shazna Begum
E-mail address: begums1994@gmail.com
IP Address: 176.252.25.113
Message sent to you follows:
To Whom It May Concern, I am writing to you as I was hoping to seek permission in regards to whether I could post my online survey on your forum. We are carrying out a study at the University of Wolverhampton, which aims to investigate why people might misrepresent certain aspects of themselves to others while online, within a romantic context (or ‘catfishing’ as it is commonly known as). All members on the forum are free to choose whether they wish to participate in the study. The study will take approximately 20-30 minutes to complete, and participants will be asked to answer a series of questions. Any answers provided will be anonymous and treated with strict confidentiality. If you wish to find out more about the study, please do not hesitate to contact either myself or the main researcher Dr Chris Fullwood (C.Fullwood@wlv.ac.uk). I look forward to hearing from you. Kind regards Shazna Begum

[CharlieM9]

Jools,

Please tell me you responded in some way to that email? And managed to sneak in "have you looked read anything on the site?"

Could try and catfish them by doing so.....

[Jools]

I suggested that as the site was aimed at aquarium catfish, that is wasn't really for us. Didn't have that kind of research when I was at Uni!

Jools

[JamesFish]

Well the world changes and my catfish have never pretended to be anything but what they are. Wonder what information they would hope to study.

[bekateen]

I suggested that as the site was aimed at aquarium catfish, that is wasn't really for us.

Are you serious? I thought this WAS a dating site! Isn't this plentyof(cat)fish dot com??? Oh, man. I am so confused now.

LOLOLOL

[syno321]

[quote="bekateen"][quote="Jools"]I suggested that as the site was aimed at aquarium catfish, that is wasn't really for us.[/quote]

Are you serious? I thought this WAS a dating site! Isn't this plentyof(cat)fish dot com??? Oh, man. I am so confused now.

LOLOLOL[/quote]

You're not the only one. After all there is information on this site regarding triggering (mood enhancement using environmental factors aiming towards a specific goal, seduction?), characteristics that favor partner selection, mating (copulation methods including internal fertilization), the passing of genetic material to future generations,etc. Can come across as sordid.

[catfishchaos]

Shane's world article: Spawning of Humaniods

[bekateen]

In that case, Jools, stop working on the "like function" ("Like" feature?) for good posts and just make a "swipe right" function.

[JamesFish]

Well today I put on the TV and saw a catfish show thought great. Turned it on nope not a catfish in sight if you see Catfish madmax you don't get to see any catfish.

Looks like this is now big time phrase.

[Mol_PMB]

I went to see Catfish and the Bottlemen a couple of times last year. No fins or whiskers in sight. Does that count? ;)

[TwoTankAmin]

So, this term was totally alien to me in its non-traditional meaning. So I Googled it and found this from the Urban Dictionary:

catfish
A catfish is someone who pretends to be someone they're not using Facebook or other social media to create false identities, particularly to pursue deceptive online romances.
Did you hear how Dave got totally catfished last month?! The fox he thought he was talking to turned out to be a pervy guy from San Diego!

or

I was really falling for that gorgeous gal on Facebook, but she turned out to be a catfish.

from http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=catfish

And I thought to myself, another reason why I do not use any social media.

More amazing is the idea that there might be a site dedicated to "catfish" as defined above. Really?

And most amazing is, when I Google catfish, the first three responses have nothing to do with the type of fish we all all keep.

[pleconut]

I checked out the google search pages, on my browser Planet Catfish as in our regular website, is on the third page, this researcher must have thought she had struck gold, at least in terms of potentially presenting a really good study paper.