Catfish: The TV Show stars Nev Schulman and Kamie Crawford shared that the new MTV season will be the darkest they’ve filmed to date, which includes quite a few shocking money scams.
“We have some uplifting, happy-ending episodes, but yeah, I think people are going harder. They’re giving more money. They’re making bigger sort of irreversible decisions,” Schulman told Showbiz Cheat Sheet. “I don’t know if it’s desperation that people feel in terms of trying to find someone or force themselves into these relationships, despite the many roadblocks and red flags. But yeah, things get a little kind of dark.”
“This season is the most money we’ve seen someone spend on Catfish before … ever,” Crawford added. “I mean, collectively, this whole entire rest of the season is going to be a lot of money spent. Get your calculators out. Add it up. I think the amount of money that people have been spending could possibly pay for our entire production.”
‘Catfishing’ may be the same, but the game has changed this season, according to Nev and Kamie
The Catfish duo said the concept of catfishing has been taken to a new level between the isolation of the pandemic and emerging technology.
“I think for sure [the pandemic] forced a lot of people to look online for connection that they hadn’t previously had or considered. Or were not necessarily interested in it,” Schulman said. “But then I also think, we’re seeing how they created a very real bond. And I think shared trauma for a lot of people where we all went through that.”
“Some of us lost loved ones and found these Internet friendships and connections to be very meaningful support systems,” he continued. “As a result, they’ve developed very deep bonds and connections with people online. Many of which are now a year or two later turned into romance and have blossomed. They are now kind of looking to finally shake out and see what’s what. So we’re seeing a lot of that.”
“I think for a lot of people, we obviously were all cooped up in the house, stir crazy,” Crawford said. “I think that people who already had ill intentions were really able to work on that. And then coming out of the pandemic, being able to still keep that going and maybe even more irons in the fire than they had before. Yeah, I think honestly, I feel like it’s gotten worse. I think it’s gotten worse in a lot of ways.”
New season of ‘Catfish: The TV Show’ begins on a heartbreaking note
The premiere episode of the new season of Catfish: The TV Show is a heartbreaking shocker when the story of Shi and Mira takes a sinister turn. Shi admitted to Schulman and Crawford that he avoided meeting people in real life and has fallen for a woman online.
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The woman Mira avoided meeting him and Crawford and Schulman quickly get to the bottom of this catfish nightmare. It turns out the woman is not Mira but instead, her name is Shiona – and she lives in the same city as Shi. She used a fake photo while communicating with Shi and then rejected him because he wasn’t “tall enough” for her.
But once Shiona starts giggling, Shi breaks down in tears. Crawford was stunned. “I never expect for someone who sounds so loving and doting over text to be so mean in person,” she said about the shocking moment.
“Those things are always so weird to me. No matter what, if you’re in a situation where you know you’ve been lying or you haven’t been telling the full truth, coming with a certain level of humility is always welcomed and honestly, that’s the least you can do. So, when they don’t come with that, it’s always shocking,” Crawford added.
Nev may have saved a life on this new season of ‘Catfish’
Ultimately Shi decides to start dating in real life. Also, Schulman shared that he “saved” his life in another way.
“A positive outcome from that episode, which I don’t think is in it, was that the young man who we were helping never drank water at all. He just doesn’t like drinking water, he didn’t like the taste of it. And as a result, he finds himself often dehydrated to the point of hospitalization,” Schulman revealed.
“So I said, ‘Well, have you ever tried, like, flavored sparkling water?’ And he looked at me like I was an alien and didn’t know that that was a thing. And so I got him a case of LaCroix, which he drank the whole thing in like 10 hours. And now, fortunately, is a fan of sparkling water. So it may have saved his life.”
Catfish: The TV Show is on Tuesday night on MTV.
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