S1E4 Jasmine and Mike: First Brush With Villainy
“You did this for why?” “Why not?” “For why?” “Why not?”
When I think about iconic episodes of Catfish, I think about the villains.
(Okay, I also think about the Katy Perry episode and the ghost episode, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.)
The villains of Catfish make for excellent television, because few things are as entertaining as illogical people acting with utter conviction (see also: Family Feud). They stage dramatic entrances and extol their triumph over the hopeful, but, when pressed, give reasons that generally make no sense. They present themselves as masterminds, but inevitably reveal themselves to be damaged weirdos (as a damaged weirdo, it’s okay for me to say that) - and actually, I think that’s a useful framework for understanding most interpersonal conflict. Catfish villains aren’t unfeeling manipulators, as much as they’d like us to believe that. They are hurt people who spend all their time having loving conversations with people they claim to despise.
The Episode
Nev and Max head to (an extremely floral bed-and-breakfast in) Atlanta at the request of Jasmine, a 18-year-old single mom who’s been in an online relationship with Mike for two years. Mike is a single father and modeling agent (pretty close to Catfish Core Lie #1) who lives a mere fifteen minutes from Jasmine, but they’ve never even spoken on the phone. Jasmine likes Mike because he’s “a real man”: “he’s independent, he works, he takes care of his kids - he can make me feel like I’m at home.” As a teenage mother, she’s craving the stability and maturity that aren’t common in many of her peers.
Max and Nev pore over Mike’s Facebook page and discover that the “modeling agency” he claims to work for is like, a school? In Pakistan? And his photos are of a guy named Tyler. When they call Mike, not only does he not answer, but his voicemail isn’t set up. Things are not looking good. Furthermore, when they meet Jasmine and her ADORABLE BABY SON at the park to show her their findings, Jasmine observes that Mike is Facebook friends with her ex, Josh, which they all find very weird and suspicious. Still, Jasmine’s biggest fear is not that Mike isn’t real, but rather that he’s in a relationship already. Nev dictates an ultimatum text for Jasmine to send to Mike, and he agrees to meet up with them the following day.
Jasmine puts on a little sundress and a magenta-and-teal eyeshadow look (I am obsessed with the outfits people pull together to meet their catfish) and they go to Mike’s apartment complex, which, as Max points out, doesn’t look like the kind of place a successful modeling agent would live. They wait, and eventually, the truth is unforgettably revealed: Mike turns out to be Mhissy, a former friend of Jasmine’s with whom she had a falling out over Josh, a guy they were both seeing.
Mhissy is, unfortunately, hilarious. She also comes dressed for the occasion in a red dress and pearls, and greets Jasmine by hurling a single flower at her. When Jasmine confronts her with “I was talking to this person, supposedly Mike, for two years!” Mhissy laughs and retorts “Yeah, who does this?” Jasmine tearfully begs the boys to let her beat Mhissy’s ass, but they, alas, do not.
“There’s a lot of anger in my life”
Nev and Max are very reluctant to visit Mhissy the day after the confrontation, but when they do she is very different from the flower-throwing, cackling villain of before. They go to her apartment and meet her mother, Lovely, and her baby niece, Diamond. Nev comments on the coffee table, which is missing its glass top; Mhissy says that it was broken in a violent altercation between her mother and her sister (Diamond’s mom) that resulted in her sister’s incarceration.
Mhissy maintains, throughout the conversation, that she got what she wanted (Jasmine humiliated) and has no reason to keep up the Mike charade any longer. She recognizes that people may see her as a bad person, but that doesn’t really matter to her, because her life has been shitty and hard and she got one over on someone who hurt her. I’m not saying I condone what Mhissy did, or that I think Jasmine deserved it, but I get it, and I do like her stubbornness. Because come on: It does feel good to lash out when you’ve been hurt, especially when you’re seventeen and nobody else seems to have feelings as big as yours.
Welcome back to “I read Nev’s book so you don’t have to”: Toxic Positivity edition.
We define toxic positivity as the excessive and ineffective overgeneralization of a happy, optimistic state across all situations. The process of toxic positivity results in the denial, minimization, and invalidation of the authentic human emotional experience. (The Psychology Group)
In his book, Nev uses “Jasmine and Mike” as his main example of a Revenge Catfish, a catfish whose “intention from the get-go is to deceive and hurt somebody.” Revenge Catfish, he says, have a “pass-the-buck mentality - the inverse of paying it forward.” He conceded that Mhissy was hurting and felt she had no control over her life, and this drove her to exact revenge on Jasmine. Jasmine became a scapegoat for all the betrayals Mhissy had experienced over the course of her short life.
It’s not just Revenge Catfish who think this way, Nev notes, because a lot of people who go online “to vent their frustration” spread negativity anywhere they can. He notes: “In our worst moments, we’re all capable of this kind of thinking. If we’re not careful, we can seed nastiness and hate everywhere we go.” As someone who was once directly accused by Nev of spreading negativity online (more on that later, probably), I agree with his analysis but not his extrapolation. I am generally skeptical of anyone who idealizes the general concept of “positivity,” because I usually find it inherent to the value systems of privileged people who think that mindset is the key to their success.
I really chafe against the idea that people who have been dealt shitty circumstances shouldn’t react with anger. Yes, what Mhissy did to Jasmine was wrong. No, it’s not okay to hurt other people just because you’ve been hurt. But chastising people for not embodying love and sunshine in the face of adversity doesn’t seem very productive, either. (I liked this article about rejecting toxic positivity during this pandemic, in the face of objectively terrible vibes).
The thing about Revenge Catfish is that once their deception is revealed, and their plan comes to fruition, they wake up the next day having lost someone that they were talking to every day for months or years. I think it’s possible that the best (worst?) punishment for them is whenever they realize that they made a fake connection just to lose a real one. You know, like in Cruel Intentions. Why do I keep bringing up Ryan Phillippe movies?
Next week: Jarrod and Abby. I’ll try to make it festive.
XOXO,
Hannah
LOGGED OFF, or what I’m doing when I’m not watching Catfish
Reading: What Can I Do? My Path from Climate Despair to Action by Jane Fonda
Excited for: The New York City Ballet’s livestream of The Nutcracker, because I (like Nev) am a NYCB groupie. Whee!