I just wanna remind my teen followers- please, never ever meet up with someone you met on the internet without bringing an adult with you, and whatever you do, DO NOT GIVE ANYONE YOUR ADDRESS FOR ANY REASON.
When I was about 12 or 13, I was talking to (who I thought was) a 13 year old girl named Cassie on DeviantArt. She still has an account to this day.
I believed Cassie, because she sent me lots of selfies of her doing different things, she sent me videos of her little brother, I even talked to her on the phone.
It turns out, Cassie was not Cassie. Cassie was Cassie’s mom.
I was talking to a woman in her late 30’s, early 40’s. She was using her daughter to catfish not just me, but other children -both male and female. It was disgusting.
I figured this out only when my dad took my phone and saw that I had been talking to this woman and did some researching for himself. Then he called the police from the area she lived in. They had recieved multiple reports of this, and apparently, since she had not had contact with a child, all they could do was take her electronic devices from her.
That was when I realized that all of those stories “Cassie” made up about being “grounded” from her stuff, was really just the police confiscating everything. At one point, she complained to me because she dropped her phone in some cereal; then, another time, she said she never had a phone in the first place. Hmmm.
I don’t know if this is the same in every state, taking away electronics when an ADULT is catfishing a CHILD (a little bit of an easy punishment if you ask me), but maybe I wasn’t told the full of it. I don’t know.
She also moved accounts multiple times (about 5 times a month), likely to avoid the police’s efforts to get her to stop. interacting. with. children.
Anyways, here’s the catch-
Cassie asked for my address multiple times.
I would post something about how I didn’t have bug juice where I lived- “Give me your address, I can send you some!!” I’m glad I had enough sense to tell her no, I don’t need you to send me anything.
But it kept going on. She kept asking me over and over.
I was lucky it stopped when it did. I’m surprised that cps never took away “Cassie”’s poor daughter and newborn son. It’s disgusting.
So what I’m trying to tell you from this story, is-
Even if you ask for a picture of them doing something completely random, and they send it to you, it could very well be their son, daughter, niece, nephew, etc.
The best thing to do is say you are meeting up in a public place, (NEVER THEIR HOUSE), and you are bringing an adult you know with you. If they’re not up for that, and they’re freaked out by the idea of you having an adult with you, that is a predatory catfish and you need to block them immediately.
also, don’t let your guard down just because they’re the same gender as you. Like. There are predators of every gender. Anybody can be a predator, so keep your guard up.
