*Mariah was just 11 years old when she started , in an activity known as catfishing.
“It started on MySpace when I was in middle school, which is just a hard time for everyone," Mariah, now 24, told SBS Insight’s Kumi Taguchi.
You're going through puberty, you feel really ugly, and I know I personally never really liked the way that I looked."
Part of Mariah’s insecurity came from growing up as mixed-race in the United States.
“There’s a lot of whitewashing in the media, so I always thought to be pretty, you had to be white and blonde," she said.
"I was adding all these guys that I had classes with on MySpace, and I thought they wouldn’t talk to me, but maybe they’ll talk to a pretty, white, blonde girl."
I just was questioning my sexuality - I wasn't sure who I was or who I wanted to be, and catfishing was that escape.
Catfishing later became a means for Mariah to explore her complex sexuality and gender identity. She switched from using fake profiles of women, to solely pretending to be queer men.
“I just was questioning my sexuality - I wasn't sure who I was or who I wanted to be, and catfishing was that escape,” Mariah said.
Eric Vanman, a social neuroscientist at the University of Queensland has conducted research into who is more likely to catfish, and said he found many catfishers ranked high on loneliness and were slightly depressed.
“When you ask them why they catfish, they usually did it out of boredom, or they felt not very secure about themselves or they even maybe want to explore some aspect about their personality, like their sexuality or something that they couldn't do normally,” he told Insight.
Often people who catfish share intimate details of their character’s life to develop trust with their victims.
It took Torrie Marshall, 25, from Sydney five months to realise she had been catfished by an unknown man who had stolen and used the photos of a Greek musician.
Torrie Marshall, 25, from Sydney.
"We shared stories that I wouldn't share with anybody else."
They had organised to meet in the Blue Mountains, but when the time came, the man never showed and never spoke to Torrie again. It wasn’t until then that Torrie used Google Reverse Image Search and found she had been catfished.
The experience has had long term effects on Torrie’s trust in others.
“I definitely do not trust people, I've accused people of being a catfish when they're not, so that's quite embarrassing but also, I just don't believe anybody either,” she said.
“I'm trying to move past it but, at the time, it was the most heart-breaking thing I had experienced.”
Catfisher, Mariah, has gone to extreme lengths to create excuses for never meeting up with her victims.
She ended her last catfishing relationship with a man named Karim*, while posing as Chris, a bisexual man over Tinder.
“I just couldn't come up with a good enough excuse and I knew Karim was really, really falling for Chris so, that's when I killed Chris off.”
Mariah created Sophie, an ex-girlfriend account for Chris, and then contacted Karim.
“Sophie had reached out to Karim saying that Chris didn't make it in a car accident, he freaked out.”
Associate Professor Vanman has found that people who catfish are motivated by a desire for a relationship with their victim rather than any financial incentive.
“I think they usually end up getting stuck in the relationship and then, before they know it, it's gotten too deep and too involved," he said.
“They get quite intimate with the people that they're catfishing and it's like a friend or relationship that they have to cut off because they're worried about being caught.
"Then they're left lonely and end up spiralling back into the same behaviour again.”
Mariah has been conflicted about whether or not she should continue catfishing.
“Karim says Chris was like, the most special person to him, I've made people really happy with the profiles,” she said.
“I get sad sometimes when they fall for me and I'm sad that I'm not the person who they're talking to.
"I do feel bad, but then, I guess I'm happy that I could give them that experience sometimes.”
*Some names have been changed for privacy.
