Catfishing is a deceptive activity where a person creates a sockpuppet presence or fake identity on a social networking service , usually targeting a specific victim for abuse or fraud. Catfishing is often employed for romance scams on dating websites. The practice may be used for financial gain, to compromise a victim in some way, or simply as forms of trolling or wish fulfillment.

Plus, many people who troll think what they do is an “art”. Romance scammers create dating your cousin friend fake profiles on dating sites and when trolling.

As a plus-size woman who uses the internet, Laura Delarato is no stranger to internet trolls. The year-old video producer at Refinery29 recently created a short film to demonstrate that she is confident, sexy, and plus-size, and that none of these are exclusive of the others — but not everyone was getting the message. As jarring as Delarato found these comments, she decided to reclaim them by incorporating them in the unapologetically sexy, NSFW photos in her Instagram series ” The Comments Project.

In the photos, Delarato repurposes comments from critics of her Refinery29 video — as well as wildly inappropriate remarks from other users on dating sites — as censor bars over her body. As I kept making more wide-spread projects in my professional life, the comments and trolling amplified across social media. While it can be isolating to read critical messages from strangers who know nothing about Delarato’s health, Delarato says that she feels “happy and healthy about my body and what it does in the world, and that’s really all that matters.

Her project is designed to remind us that internet comments reach real people and that they make an impact. Not a computer screen. Keywords plus size Instagram body positivity concern troll.