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Hello and welcome back to Cult Leader. I'm your Cult Leader Spencer Henry. Can you guys believe we are already halfway through December? I'm just not okay.

I'm the worst when it comes to Christmas shopping. I always try to be the person that every year I'm like, I'm going to be on top of it, but every year without fail. I end up waiting until the last minute, spending too much money, because I can't figure it out.

Speaking of, I got a notification from Facebook the other day, which is an odd sentence in itself, because I don't even know why I still have a Facebook.

It was a Facebook memory from three years ago, where I got duped at paper source. If you don't have a paper source near you, it's like a bougie craft store. I love it.

But that particular time, I'd gone into by four roles of wrapping paper. I grabbed those four roles. Went to check out. It was $100 fucking dollars. I'm not good under pressure in those types of situations.

I wish I was the person that was like, oh, yeah, let me keep looking, but I have this innate mindset that I can't say no once I'm out the register. I paid for it. I did. I spent $100 on wrapping paper. They were $24.99 each. I'm still annoyed at it to this day.

I'm not what I would consider a frugal person at all. I probably would help me if I was. Those are the kinds of things that just get me in trouble this time of year. It doesn't help that everybody I know was born in either December or January. It's a busy time in my world.

I do want to tell you guys that I have a very special Christmas episode in the works with a special guest that a lot of you have asked for. We're going to be covering a case that is probably my most requested. I hope you're ready for that. Today's episode is a whirlwind. It's a surprise with an surprise. The whole time reading about it, I was like, what? Just what?

And then when I got to the end, I was like, what? So hopefully you guys have the same reaction. Let's talk about catfishing. It's a term probably made most popular by the MTV show Catfish, which if you didn't know, it started out as a documentary focusing on one particularly insane story of somebody pretending to be somebody else.

And in this virtual age of online communication and dating apps, I'm sure we all know at least one person who has come out with some sort of horror story from online dating or meeting up with somebody from the internet.

Actually, wait, because if any of you have a good story about getting catfished, send it to Spencer at Coel leader.com because I feel like that could be a really fun little leader.

But perhaps one of the things that I find the funniest, I guess in the realm of catfishing is especially when it pertains to online personalities or influencers, etc.

Who like Photoshop or FaceToon themselves into oblivion that you would never be able to even recognize them in person. Because that's like one of my biggest fears ever. I mean, everybody face tunes, everybody does apps and presets and whatnot.

But imagine running into someone in public and being like, oh shit, you do not look like you. What do you do when people meet you in real life? I don't know.

But there's a whole thread on Reddit called Instagram versus reality. And it's basically a compilation of Photoshop errors or people's pictures that they post in a side by side with tagged pictures to show what they actually looked like.

And I'm not for shaming or making anyone feel bad. But also, like, if you're putting yourself out there looking like an entirely different person, you're bound to have to face that at some point.

But I feel like we all just know one person in our lives. And it's especially, it's not even like the younger crowd necessarily.

Like I have seen so many moms on Facebook like smooth the fuck out of their faces to the point where you're like, what are you? Are you even a person?

Or the best is when they like also face to and like their husbands. I live for it. I love it.

But today's story starts in 2005, perhaps during the height of online chat rooms as we knew them.

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