Confessions of a Catfishing YouTuber

Chapter Three: How it started

A few days later, I created a new email address, and used it to open new Twitter and Facebook accounts. I set up the camera, and started looking for my fans. A couple of likes on posts about myself, and soon I was exchanging DMs asking "what's your favourite picture of Dave?", or "which lyrics do you like the best and why?" It looked weird messaging from an empty account, so I tried to build credibility by posting content using random images I'd downloaded. Most of the fans were female, so I pretended to be a woman living in a large UK city. Eventually, I created a whole persona.

If I'm honest, I think I got addicted to hearing all those flattering things about myself. Or about the person they think I am. It was thrilling to be anonymous, and to re-invent myself as a different character. I felt like an undercover spy, infiltrating this weird online space I didn't belong in. It was like a real life soap opera, but one where I was the main story.

In my defence, I tried to be really careful. I always checked to make sure each girl wasn't too young, and didn't seem too mentally unstable. Yes it was going to be embarrassing, but I didn't want my video to push anyone to the point of hurting themselves.

I told myself I was being supportive. Most of them just seemed a bit lost, going through that difficult transition from teenager to adulthood, and distracting themselves with an online crush. Hell, I've been there. Except my crushes were video game characters instead of real people. I tried to be kind, to encourage them and give them some damn self-confidence so they would stop being doormats for their shitty boyfriends. There was always a shitty boyfriend.

I quickly realised there was no way I could make a video with the content. You've got to understand, these girls are frickin' crazy. Bloody hell, the things they say to each other. It starts off talking about my content, or sharing pictures, but somehow 10 messages in, it always ends up talking about fantasies. Sometimes pretty innocent stuff. Sometimes really explicit. I discouraged it at first, but these girls are damn persistent. There are only so many times you can deflect questions about your favourite fantasy between yourself and your fake Facebook profile until you start making shit up.

It made me feel good about myself. It made me want to be more like the person they thought I was. Someone talented, confident, and attractive. I stopped cringing whenever girls would confide, in detail, about how they wished they could "go over to his house and..."

...well, I guess I don't need to spell it out. Of course if anyone actually turned up on my doorstep, I would freak out and call the bloody police. What sort of person does that? Christ. But this was different. It felt safe. They had no idea who I was, and they were just fantasies, nothing serious.

It's strange isn't it? How you know you would hate something in real life, but somehow you can still fantasise about it at 2am when you're alone in your bedroom with your laptop.

But, the whole thing was an invitation for demonetization. The video would never work. I turned off the camera and deleted the files.