word
Catfish
To pose online as someone you're not, usually to seduce or manipulate.
Origin
From the 2010 documentary Catfish, in which the filmmaker discovers his online romance is an invention by a different woman. The MTV series of the same name (2012โ) turned the title into a verb. The fish-tank metaphor inside the film โ that adding a catfish to a shipment keeps the cod swimming and lively โ is the etymological origin.
Modern usage
Standard dating vocabulary. 'I got catfished' is the universal description of meeting someone wildly different from their profile.
Tags
deception
dating
internet