The Beauty Queen and the Catfish

[Youngeryoungsuddenly]

This three part documentary tells the story of many women, looking to find love, who were fooled into thinking they were talking to a real person. The numbers and the deception are staggering. Even more shocking is the revelation of who was behind it all.

It’s on BBC iPlayer.

It’s bonkers!!! NO SPOILERS for those not watched yet as would never have expected that, watched at my mums the other day and wowsers!!

Yes, it’s definitely worth watching and a salutary warning for anyone planning on trying online dating or a dating App, like Tinder.

I know it’s a bit of a cliche to say but honestly so many red flags with the David profile and behaviour it’s very hard to understand how people believe it.
And then when we heard the voice I mean seriously!!!
Sounded like Jimmy Cranky or a little old Scottish fella.

Like if he lives in the same city as you and drops stuff at your house but can’t ever meet you for months at what point do you believe it will be a normal face to face relationship.

I understand people believe what they want to and all that but it just seems so easy.

Also were all the women other than Abbie (who is amazing) wearing wigs ?

@Victoriawould24 the wigs!! I know, was it part of a disguise?

Just started watching it, literally 10 minutes ago!

Why would you accept a friend request from a stranger? And when he messaged to say he’s your grandad’s doctor at the hospital, why wouldn’t you report the creep to the hospital? Surely it’s gross misconduct for a doctor to track down relatives of patients outside of work? He’s a good looking guy yeah but it’s really creepy of him to randomly message the granddaughter of a patient. They hadn’t even met at the hospital so how did he even know about her? I have so many questions, it’s so weird!

Oh my God, yes - the voice! It sounded just like a woman to me. I can't believe how gullible someone them were. Did nobody think to do a reverse image search of the photos. It was just bizarre. But I suppose people want to believe it's real.

Why did these women not find this guy creepy as fuck?! He’d leave things outside the other lady’s house - how was she not ringing the police? She’d never met him and he was turning up at her home invading her privacy and being super creepy hiding away from her like a stalker! And the weird magazine thing where he’d circle words and tell her which page to turn to - what kind of sane person does that?! I’d be so freaked out if a guy did that to me.

These women must be so vulnerable, it’s worrying. I’m still watching it so I don’t know what happens but I hope these women are ok and have people looking after them now.

@PennyLaneisinmyheartandmysoulIt must have been but then we saw them and heard them so other than make them look weird I don’t understand the point.

Ano thing with the voice apart from it sounding odd as hell and completely unsexy, is as if that guy in the photo’s spoke like that.
The blonde woman who I really liked did seem to be prioritising wealth so I suppose if you are going after the shiny things you are easy impressed and willing to overlook the absolute insanity of what was really happening.

One of the main things which struck me was how sad it is that some women are so desperate that they must have a man in their life and what they will tolerate in the chance they have found one.

There were so many women taken in by this, it’s scary. It’s easy to think they were gullible but I’m keeping an open mind and not blaming the victims.

I’m not blaming the victims but I think it’s reasonable to try and understand the cognitive dissonance going on by otherwise successful and functioning women to believe something that presents as at best incredibly dodgy and off from the get go.
To me that is the most fascinating aspect of the story, the catfishing/ stalking itself is much easier to understand as the actions of a seriously deranged and damaged individual.

Yes, it is extremely interesting how many women were taken in by this. I don’t understand it either.

I found it so odd that the women were accepting gifts that he was supposedly delivering to their door in some cases and they didn’t think it strange that they still hadn’t met him and just kept things going with him.
Why would you give a guy your address when you’ve never met?!

@ilikeeggs I know! And one woman got suspicious that the man wasn’t who he was claiming to be so what does she do? She sends him round to her mum’s house! Why would you give a stranger (who you already suspect is dodgy) your mum’s address? Anything could have happened!

Am 3 eps in. These women are as thick as mince.

I'm on episode 3, bloody hell.

And yeah, the wigs. Probably not wanting to be recognised in real life.

But the ages of some of the women? Surely must have been 20 years older?!

This all started back in 2014.

Couldn’t work out the wigs either! It doesn’t change your appearance enough to be a disguise surely?

I just wish we knew why!!! Won’t say too much in case of spoilers.

I thought it was going to be revelatory but no. Just what happens to gullible people who aren’t very bright.

Absolutely this.

Isn’t that victim blaming?

I dont think it's just women though. I think that within our society there is so much loneliness and capitalism conditions us to value the wrong things in people (beauty, perfectly white teeth, flashy cars, holidays in fucking Dubai etc, etc ) which leads to even more loneliness. So when deeply lonely men or women think that this "perfect" person is interested in them, they lose all sense of reasoning. It's very, very sad. But it's a social/ political problem. I don't blame the individual.

Also, I've never done OLD, but is it normal to talk for weeks and weeks and not actually meet the person? It just seems utterly bizarre to me, but maybe im just old.