If you haven’t been sucked into a 17-million part series on TikTok yet, just wait… you will. Whether it’s home renovation projects or ‘exposing celebrities I met at work’ series’, TikTok is becoming our new go-to binge-watching app.
Our latest obsession? The woman catfishing her catfish. Kirsteen Coupar, a consultant from Reigate and Banstead, has gained over 22,000 followers thanks to her 23-part series detailing her experience with a man attempting to scam money out of her.
‘Storytime! This is a story of the time I got catfished by this bloke here,’ Coupar starts her first video, pointing to an image of olympic high jumper Patrik Sjöberg .’Well not him someone pretending to be him and I decided to have a bit of fun with him.’
Coupar explains that she met ‘Mark’ on OK!Cupid and was immediately suspicious by his initial messages having ‘minor experiences with catfishes in the past’. Telling her he was a widower, Coupar says ‘I have met so many catfishes with dead wives who died in car crashes so immediately my catfish radar is blaring.’
A quick Google reverse image search revealed the true identity of 'Mark's' picture, which upon seeing it was a famous athlete Coupar decided to message Sjöberg to let him now. Surprisingly, Sjöberg was well aware of the situation, telling Coupar 'this guy has been on many different sites for more than two years' and that he had tried to report him to no avail.
Despite dealing with a professional catfisher, Coupar decided to play along and ended up embarking on a week’s long ‘talking stage’ with Mark in which she played various jokes on him – even inventing a series of other characters. All the while, he was convinced she was falling for his money-grabbing scheme which included asking her for £5000 for construction tools for his business and various expenses to travel to see her.
Watching each part to her story – which honestly, you have to once you’ve seen one – the lengths Mark goes to to prove his identity would make anyone question their sanity. Sending her photoshopped pictures of Sjöberg holding a whiteboard with personal messages on, essay-long romantic messages about his supposed deceased wife and creating fraudulent certificates of his engineering and university certificates.
Sharing her journey on Facebook at first, Coupar took suggestions from her friends as how to mess with Mark. From inventing strange hobbies like collecting creepy dolls and having him name them to speaking to him only in song lyrics, Couper’s friends even helped her convince Mark of various dramas in her life by sending their own photoshopped images.
In one instance for example, after Mark asks for the money for tools, Coupar tells him that instead of sending the money directly she had decided to surprise him with the tools and bought them off another man online. Instantly nervous, the catfish warns her she may in fact be being scammed by this other man ('It takes a catfish to know a catfish', Coupar quips) and asks her to send him a picture of the man in a red t-shirt holding a sign. One of her Facebook friends happily obliges, resulting in yet an unhappy Mark who has now missed out on his big money win.
And you'll be happy to know, Coupar eventually called him out. But shockingly, it was because he figured out who SHE was.
Using a fake name, he eventually google reverse imaged her and found out her real name calling her it in one of his last messages. 'You finally used your two brain cells, did you?' Coupar replies. 'I've realised that you've been a catfish since your third message... i've been having a great time playing you for the last few weeks.'
Tearing him a new one, the catfish apologised and, again if you can believe it, tried to get back in her good books! Only though, becaase he was scared she would 'expose' him.
With so many twists and turns in this story, including fake plane tickets and (if you can believe it) a promise of a kidney donation, you can’t blame TikTok users for being sucked into this incredible series.
No wonder it has thousands of likes on each video then, with Coupar’s hilarious commentary keeping viewers entertained throughout. Honestly, with women like Coupar detailing the dramas of their unimaginable personal lives on TikTok, it’s a wonder we we’re ever bored in lockdown.
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