On September 2, Nev Schulman, host of MTV’s hit Catfish: The TV Show, released his first book, In Real Life: Love, Lies & Identity in the Digital Age.
If you’ve never heard of Catfish: The TV Show, here’s a synopsis of how it came to be:
In 2007, Schulman started talking to a girl named Megan online, first through MySpace and then it progressed onto e-mail and then onto phone, and soon enough, they felt like they were in a true romantic relationship with one another. The only problem? They had never seen each other in real life.
Until one day in 2008 when Schulman traveled from his home in New York City to a little town in Michigan to change that. However, when the person inside the house opened the door to face him, it was not the beautiful, young Megan in the pictures. It was an older, kind of frumpy woman named Angela.
Instead of letting this ruin his life, Schulman coined the term “catfish” as someone who pretends to be someone they’re not on the Internet and with the help of his brother Rel and friend Henry, produced Catfish: The Documentary on his story. The documentary led to Catfish: The TV Show, where he travels the country and helps other people meet their online loves in real life to find out the truth. And now here he is, with In Real Life: Love, Lies & Identity in the Digital Age, to tell the behind-the-scenes and offer advice to us all on paper.
The book is comprised of three major topics that Schulman explores all throughout.
Topic #1: Schulman’s story – online and offline.
Since I already knew Schulman’s online story about “Megan” and Angela from being a fan since the documentary, the part that really surprised me was his offline story. Ever since I watched Catfish: The Documentary back in 2010, Schulman has seemed to me like a really great guy. His sense of humor is great, he shows a lot of empathy, and not to mention, he’s extremely good-looking. I admire him a lot.
He hasn’t always been a good role model like this, though. In his book, he reveals that he was actually somewhat of a delinquent growing up. He was kicked out of three schools, did drugs, slept around with girls, and he basically described himself as a huge jerk.
Seeing Schulman now, he does not seem like that kind of person at all anymore. The fact that he realized he needed to change and is now acting as a source of positivity for people all over the world is kind of inspiring. Which brings us to topic number two.
Topic #2: Be happy!
I know it’s a lot easier said than done, but being happy and staying positive are vital to being a good person. In the book, Schulman talks about how the number one reason behind people catfishing is because they’re unhappy with their current selves. They make fake profiles online, using pictures of a skinnier girl, lying and saying they have a better job and adding thousands of friends to make themselves appear more popular. In the long term though, this just makes them even more unhappy.
All the time and energy spent wasted on this fake online persona could have went towards working out, continuing education, job scouting and making real life friends. Be happy and stay positive and the rest will follow.
“When you’re comfortable with yourself, people will like you,” Schulman said.
Topic #3: Don’t let social media rule your life.
Stop judging your beauty by the number of “likes” you get on your Facebook profile picture and stop judging your popularity by the number of followers you have on Twitter. Those things do not add up to your value in real life. When you’re out with your friends, put your phone down. Stop connecting with your online friends and appreciate the real life friends you have right in front of you. When you’re at a concert, stop Instagramming videos and enjoy the live music instead.
Ever since social media became popular, it has started to rule every social construct around us. It can be a great tool for expressing creativity and keeping in touch, but you have to learn when it’s gotten too far.
Overall, In Real Life: Love, Lies & Identity in the Digital Age is an excellent book. If you’re a fan of Schulman and Catfish: The TV Show like me, it offers great extensions to the themes discussed in the show and is full of the personality and voice we’ve all come to love. Even if you’d never heard of him or the show before now, the book offers incredibly uplifting and inspiring life advice you can take with you forever.
Schulman will be hosting a book talk followed by a book signing on September 10 at the Barnes and Noble in Old Orchard. Tickets for the signing are sold out, but you can still manage to get a seat at the book talk. I got my tickets last week, and I absolutely can not wait to go.
