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S04.E08: Whitney & Bre

Persnickety1

By Persnickety1
in Catfish [V]

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ShaNaeNae

ShaNaeNae

Boo. 

 

Moral of the story. Lie and get caught...you too will be awarded a trip across the country!

 

Was she really a stripper, or was that part made up? You'd think with that job, you could save up for a plane ticket in 4 years. Even so, at the end, it said "she got a job part time as a hairdressers assistant so can afford another ticket". What was she doing before? And why wasn't she working full time?

  • Love 9
gesundheit

gesundheit

My girlfriend and I once had a long elaborate (hypothetical and in jest, of course) discussion about how we should catfish Catfish to get a free trip someplace. So I was admittedly delighted to see that someone actually did that! It was a pretty boring episode, but really. The show deserves it. (Though do we really believe the producers did such little due diligence that this was a total surprise? I thought the idea was generally that the producers knew absolutely everything in advance but Nev and Max do not. I suppose Bre could've told them she was using fake photos, but if that was literally the only sketchy part of it, it seems a weird "case" for the producers to sign on for in the first place.)

  • Love 1
marny

marny

One thing this stupid episode did make clear is that the show is often contacted by the person doing the catfishing (Whitney said that it was Bre who filled out the application) rather than the person being catfished.  Which makes it pretty obvious that the initial email that Nev receives asking them for help is completely concocted bullshit.  I'd already read about this elsewhere, but I was surprised the show left in that information so that the whole audience is now aware of that level of fakery.

  • Love 2
ladyrott

ladyrott

I really thought it was going to turn out that Whitney didn't realize Luscious B was Bree and she had been talking to "both" of them without realizing it was the same person.  My boyfriend and I met online several years ago and we often joked that we should contact Catfish so we could get a free trip to visit each other (he was friends in RL with my brother so our hooking up wasn't quite as weird as it could have been  LOL).  We were laughing our asses off when we realized that that is exactly what these two did.  I can't believe they bothered to air this episode.  I think we may be in the final season of my guilty pleasure show.

  • Love 2
truebluesmoky

truebluesmoky

There's no way the producers don't know everything. Nev and Max don't have the same information each time... they have specific information and do the specific types of searches that will get them the information the producers want them to have for the story they want told, no more and no less. They've never asked for Facebook log in information before, at least not that we've been shown.

  • Love 3
JellyFishQueen

JellyFishQueen

There's no way the producers don't know everything. Nev and Max don't have the same information each time... they have specific information and do the specific types of searches that will get them the information the producers want them to have for the story they want told, no more and no less. They've never asked for Facebook log in information before, at least not that we've been shown.

Yeah I thought it was odd when Nev first met her saying, "You dervse this trip," Kinda werid since he never really noted these trips to other people before.

  • Love 1
LoneHaranguer

LoneHaranguer

 

From the recap:

"There have to be easier ways to arrange to see one another," says Max, with all the unconscious privilege of someone who can't fathom what life is like for a woman supporting four people on a Wendy's closer salary and who's had a friend lend her an apartment to meet them in, possibly because she doesn't want MTV viewers to see how she actually lives.

What "unconscious privilege"? That sounds like someone who thinks that if you can afford cable TV and internet service, you ought to be able to save up enough money for a plane ticket, if the trip is really that important to you.

  • Love 4
truebluesmoky

truebluesmoky

 

What "unconscious privilege"? That sounds like someone who thinks that if you can afford cable TV and internet service, you ought to be able to save up enough money for a plane ticket, if the trip is really that important to you.

 

Who says anyone had cable TV? Also, basic internet service can be pretty damn cheap and benefits the entire family, especially if any of her brothers is school aged and needs it for homework. In this day and age, you more or less need internet for school, job searches, bill pay, banking, etc. I do think there is some privilege in assuming that someone could save money for an expensive, round trip cross country plane ticket while being the sole provider for an entire household on a fast food salary. It sounds like her money goes first to household bills and expensive that benefit everyone she lives with, not to personal desires. It's never fair to judge someone living in poverty based on one's perceptions of what they're spending money on vs what you think they should be spending money on.

  • Love 10
LoneHaranguer

LoneHaranguer

 

It's never fair to judge someone living in poverty based on one's perceptions of what they're spending money on vs what you think they should be spending money on.

She didn't have to take the trip. She chose to scam someone rather than compromise her lifestyle to save up for it or just not do it. In this day and age, you can get internet access in schools, colleges, and libraries. Don't forget that there's a second person in this relationship, who could have been kicking in towards the airfare which can be cheap anyway if you're flexible about timing.

  • Love 4
txhorns79

txhorns79

She didn't have to take the trip. She chose to scam someone rather than compromise her lifestyle to save up for it or just not do it. In this day and age, you can get internet access in schools, colleges, and libraries. Don't forget that there's a second person in this relationship, who could have been kicking in towards the airfare which can be cheap anyway if you're flexible about timing.

 

I have to agree.  She just conned someone to pay for her trip.  It really has nothing to with "privilege" so much as she just lied to get what she wanted. 

  • Love 4
truebluesmoky

truebluesmoky

 

She didn't have to take the trip. She chose to scam someone rather than compromise her lifestyle to save up for it or just not do it. In this day and age, you can get internet access in schools, colleges, and libraries. Don't forget that there's a second person in this relationship, who could have been kicking in towards the airfare which can be cheap anyway if you're flexible about timing.

 

I was not disputing any of this. She absolutely didn't need to take the trip, and both women were absolutely at fault for scamming the show. I was by no means using her poverty as a justification for being dishonest and scamming the show. I was speaking to another poster's question about Tara's observation in her recap that Max's seeming disbelief that the scamming a TV show into sending her to California seemed like a more fathomable way to get there than saving up for a plane ticket was showing a bit of unconscious privilege on Max's part.

  • Love 4
LoneHaranguer

LoneHaranguer

 

I was speaking to another poster's question about Tara's observation in her recap that Max's seeming disbelief that the scamming a TV show into sending her to California seemed like a more fathomable way to get there than saving up for a plane ticket was showing a bit of unconscious privilege on Max's part.

Let's try this another way. What makes you think Max didn't see things that put into question Whitney's claimed inability to save up for a trip after four years? It could have been little things like pulling out a smartphone instead of a flip-phone that added up.

 

 

I do think there is some privilege in assuming that someone could save money for an expensive, round trip cross country plane ticket while being the sole provider for an entire household on a fast food salary.

How do we know that she is? She clearly didn't want her family anywhere near filming. What if she knew her mom would take exception to that portrayal because Mom's really the one raising a family with the help of government benefits. She might have given Nev an earful about Whitney not chipping in enough of what she earns and always videochatting with her friends instead of helping with the chores.

Cara

Cara

(edited)

Let's try this another way. What makes you think Max didn't see things that put into question Whitney's claimed inability to save up for a trip after four years? It could have been little things like pulling out a smartphone instead of a flip-phone that added up.

How do we know that she is? She clearly didn't want her family anywhere near filming. What if she knew her mom would take exception to that portrayal because Mom's really the one raising a family with the help of government benefits. She might have given Nev an earful about Whitney not chipping in enough of what she earns and always videochatting with her friends instead of helping with the chores.

I would be willing to bet "we" (the American taxpayers) are the ones primarily supporting them. There is no way 5 people are living off a fast food worker's salary in NY. Edited by Cara
  • Love 2
Neurochick

Neurochick

(edited)

Here's the truth.  LA and NYC are very expensive cities.  It's hard to exist on minimum wage.  I really have problems with people complaining about how "we" the taxpayers are supporting whatever; no one seems to have problems with billionaires who line their pockets while paying their employees a pittance.  

 

I thought the episode was silly but the level of anger here, the way some folks are reacting, you would think they committed capital murder.  As for them lying, well, most reality shows are full of crap anyway, so what the hell.

 

Now my real question is, why did Nev and Max agree to go through with this?  They could have just turned around and left.  

Edited by Neurochick
  • Love 13
jmonkey

jmonkey

(edited)

Well, it was bound to happen. Somebody finally "catfished" Nev and Max. The first season might have been genuine, but now we're just getting famewhores who want to be on TV or, in this case, a free round trip cross-country plane ticket. A few episodes back, it was Isaak (the creepy guy with the foot fetish) who filed an application on Courtney's behalf just so he could meet Nev (and presumably Max who was on location filming his movie at the time). I guess kudos to Whitney and Brenell for pulling this fast one. It's Nev and Max's jobs to be the gatekeepers, but they're such pushovers that there was no way they were going to stand in the way of true love. They're such nice guys. However, I think airing this kind of puts all future Catfish applicants on blast and lets them know this kind of deceit won't be tolerated again. If they do this again, it's no longer Catfish. They won't air an episode like this again, especially with all the negative feedback they've gotten from it.

 

Max seemed absolutely floored that they'd go through the trouble of applying to Catfish to meet each other repeating many times that there had to be an easier way. But I highly doubt that either Whitney (a Wendy's closer and breadwinner for her large family) or Brenell (an unemployed exotic dancer) had any extra money lying around even with government assistance. Applying was probably wishful thinking on their part and they thought there was no way Nev and Max would buy it. They had no choice but to continue with the lying once Nev and Max showed up (even though Whitney went a tad overboard with it), and they ended up getting what they wanted.

 

I applaud Whitney for working. There's no way she can support 6 kids on Wendy's wages in Bed-Stuy. There's also no way she's not on public assistance, but at least she's contributing something to the pot. If she lives in Section 8 housing, then having a job would increase her rent substantially. The system kind of discourages people from not working, so kudos to her for doing something. Brenell is unemployed in L.A. I'm sure she's getting by using public assistance as well unless she put a way a stash from her stripping days. I'm pretty sure Brenell was the opener during her stripping career and she worked the weekday shift. That is one whale of a woman, and I'm sure there is no unseeing that for the patrons who saw her remove her clothes. 

 

I will say that it was nice to watch a couple happy to see other for a change. Maybe they'll get married and Nev and Max can film the wedding on MTV's dime and be the best men.

Edited by jmonkey
mywinston

mywinston

I'm so happy they aired this episode early so I didn't have to wait x number of days to be bored.

I actually can't believe they aired this. If they didn't before, and I'm sure they did, they are going to get a veritable flood of people attempting to do just this. If this was gonna be broadcast at all, they should have told the girls off and had a really bitter ending, if just to prove the point that 'we won't stand for this shit.' As it stand, this show is probs gonna get saturated by people doing the same thing in a much less obvious manner.

The shine has worn off a bit? Enjoying Max being pretty openly checked out, tho.

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