Catfishing Is Still on the Rise—And MTV Warned Us Years Ago

I’ll admit it: I was a huge fan of MTV’s Catfish. There was something fascinating, emotional, and sometimes heartbreaking about watching people discover whether the person they had fallen for online was really who they claimed to be. But as entertaining as the show was, it also highlighted a very real problem: catfishing can happen to anyone.

Despite years of warnings from the FTC, high-profile scam cases, and even MTV’s Catfish bringing awareness to fake online relationships, catfishing and romance scams continue to rise.

As someone who was a fan of MTV’s Catfish, I always thought the show was fascinating — watching people uncover the truth behind online relationships felt dramatic but distant. But over time, it became clear that the situations featured on the show were far more common than many people realized. 

Today, the numbers show just how widespread the problem has become.

According to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), nearly 18,000 Americans reported romance or confidence scams in 2023, with victims losing more than $650 million. In 2024, reported losses climbed even higher, surpassing $672 million nationwide. These scams remain among the most financially damaging forms of online fraud.

The FBI also reports that internet crime overall continues to surge. In 2024, Americans reported more than $16 billion in losses from online scams and cybercrime — a 33% increase from the previous year. Romance scams continue to rank among the costliest forms of fraud because scammers spend weeks or months building emotional trust before asking for money.

Many victims never report what happened due to embarrassment, meaning the real numbers are likely far higher. Experts say scammers are becoming more sophisticated, using social media, dating apps, stolen photos, fake careers, and even AI-generated messages to appear convincing.So how do you know whether you’re being catfished?

I've missed Lewis Capaldi handing out Flowers

There are a few artists whose music just hits differently for you, and for me that artist has always been Lewis Capaldi. His songs have this way of sneaking into the quiet parts of your life and sitting there with you - heartbreak, hope, all of it. So when I woke up to the news about what happened in New York yesterday, I had two immediate reactions: excitement… and genuine heartbreak that I missed it.

Because apparently, if you were anywhere near Penn Station yesterday afternoon, you might have stumbled into something pretty magical.

Photo Credit: Charlie Sarsfield

Just hours before his massive headlining show at Madison Square Garden, Capaldi casually popped up outside a flower shop in Penn Station and performed a surprise mini set for commuters and fans. Not a ticketed event, not a big announcement - just Lewis, a piano, and a crowd that grew to more than 5,000 people as word spread.

And yes, he was handing out flowers.

He set up in front of Damselfly Flowers and performed three songs, turning a regular weekday rush hour into what sounded like one of the most unexpectedly emotional live moments New York has seen in a while. Fans, commuters, and curious passersby ended up packed into the space, watching him perform and walking away with single-stem flowers he handed out himself.

As a big Capaldi fan, I can’t lie - the idea of randomly running into him performing and leaving with a flower from him personally feels like the kind of story you’d tell forever. The fact that I missed it? Devastating. Truly.

Nine Inch Noize

Nine Inch Nails and Boys Noize Unleash Nine Inch Noize: A Controlled Detonation of Industrial Sound

Nine Inch Nails have never exactly been known for subtlety—but Nine Inch Noize doesn’t just push the volume. It rewires the system entirely.

Arriving Friday, April 17 via Interscope Records, the new collaborative release between Nine Inch Nails and electronic provocateur Boys Noize feels less like a side project and more like a parallel universe Nine Inch Nails has been threatening to break into for years.

And now it’s here.

From score sessions to sonic overload

What started in the world of film scoring—Challengers, TRON, and beyond—became something stranger, heavier, and more kinetic. Trent Reznor and Boys Noize found themselves locked into a shared language: texture over tradition, tension over structure, chaos carefully engineered into shape.

That chemistry didn’t stay in the studio.

It migrated to the stage.

The Peel It Back tour turned into a proving ground—Nine Inch Nails performing across two stages, including an intimate B-stage embedded in the crowd, where Boys Noize would join Reznor and company to tear familiar material apart and rebuild it in real time. Songs didn’t just get performed—they got reprogrammed.

At a certain point, it stopped feeling like a collaboration.

It started feeling like a mutation.

“Careful what you wish for…”

Then came Coachella.