Catfishing

Catfishing is a type of deceptive activity where a person creates a sock puppet social networking presence, or fake identity on a social network account, for attention seeking, bullying or as a romance scam.[1]

A "catfish" is someone pretending to be someone they are not on the internet.[2] A catfish usually targets a victim or has someone they are pretending for.[3] Usually people intend catfishing as a romance scam on dating websites or seeking online relationships. People use fake profile pictures, names, and often genders. Catfishers create fake profiles to trick people into thinking they are someone else. Usually, the fabricated life displayed is the one they wish was their own, making it easy to act as if it is really them.