The term catfishing – duping someone with a false identity online – has been around for 15 years and the practice had many Irish victims before Johnny O’Brien of the 2 Johnnies.
But it was the story of the ‘GAA catfish’, as told on the Tipperary duo’s hit podcast, that sent it mainstream in Ireland and ignited a debate around its legality.
In May 2022, O’Brien told The 2 Johnnies Podcast listeners he had been deceived into prolonged exchanges and cancelled meet-ups with a woman he had met online, hiding behind the photos and biography of another.
Darker new twists
It subsequently emerged that scores of men around the country – mostly GAA players – had been targeted and tricked by the same woman via an astonishing network of fake profiles.
And the story reemerged last month after O’Brien and Johnny McMahon released an update with some darker new twists.
The GAA catfish was still operating and was now known to be making up stories accusing real-world people, she claimed to be ex-partners, of serious assault and rape, as well as posting photos of their children.
‘What if she says I raped her on one of those accounts?’ a past victim told the podcast.
O’Brien said the scale of the catfish’s ‘deception was staggering, with fake accounts portraying siblings, co-workers and friends all to enhance authenticity’.
The comedy duo said they felt ‘compelled to act’ and have queried social media companies on what more they can do to stop catfish accounts.
They say they have been contacted by TDs and the gardaí in relation to their campaign for action.
The recent third instalment of the story reached more than two million listeners worldwide just a few days after its release.
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The 2 Johnnies said their ‘aim from the outset was to raise awareness of the damaging impact’ of catfishing, and said it was ‘clear from the response that this conversation is long overdue’.
O’Brien’s series of proposed meetups in 2022 with the fake woman, ‘Cora’, kept ending in last-minute cancellations, culminating with O’Brien sitting in a Dublin kitchen waiting for her to join for breakfast.
Cora’s housemate had corroborated her friend’s excuses and did so again when Cora couldn’t make breakfast.
It was only after O’Brien had allowed the housemate to drive him all the way home to Tipperary that he realised there was no Cora – it had been the housemate all along.
After the 2 Johnnies began telling this story on stage, many men got in touch to say they’d fallen prey to Cora or another fake profile with very similar patterns of exchange. And ‘Nicki’ – the name the 2 Johnnies continue to refer to the catfish as, though it is not her real identity – had a penchant for targeting GAA stars and well-known entertainers.
She had created an astounding network of fake profiles, each with a believable number of followers and interactions, often interacting with one another.
Still active with new profiles
She had been stringing men along for years and, according to an episode released last month, it appears she may still be.
Using a new web of fake profiles, with photos often harvested from the accounts of low-level influencers in the UK, Nicki had ensnared a new crop of men.
According to the podcast, she was rolling out the familiar excuses when it came time to meet in person, family bereavements her apparent favourite.
When her victims inevitably become suspicious, she has been known to send them messages from other accounts posing as the fake woman’s friends or family, each with a fake but convincing online presence.
‘Why aren’t you replying to our Aoife? Such and such died,’ one of her victims told the 2 Johnnies podcast.
She has photoshopped real-life people into photos on her fake profiles, including O’Brien, claiming them to be her boyfriend or ex.
Victims say it is her staggering attention to detail that makes the profiles believable.
‘She’s followed by a load of women from the next town, she must be one of the girls,’ one reasoned.
She has tricked men into giving her free tickets to Croke Park, inviting her to weddings and even to a GAA awards ceremony. But something always comes up at the last minute.
The real Nicki is understood to be a schoolteacher from Co. Armagh.
While many victims of catfishing end up being asked for money – often through ‘sextortion’ – there are no such reports from victims of the GAA catfish.
*This article was originally published on Extra.ie.
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