First, please read the rules: https://redd.it/6gc540

Then, please read this rule in particular:

4) No pro-catfishing sentiment or promotion of catfishing strategies/tactics.

Clarification: Catfishing is a waste of a person's time at best and a detriment to a person's mental state or livelihood at worst. Catfishing is obnoxious, dangerous, and pathetic. This is a place to spread information on catfishing so that there can be fewer victims in the future, or so that victimhood could be made shorter and/or less severe.

Then, please read this other, slightly-less-significant-for-this-discussion-but-still-extremely-significant rule:

3) No catfishing (obviously). Also no doxxing, stalking, harassing, brigading, or any other obnoxious/malicious behavior.

Clarification: Basically, don't follow people around or exert effort into making their online or real lives harder.

I just needed to remove a post and temp-ban for Rule 4 for this (the bolded text):

Reading people's stories on here but also on other platforms about their experiences with being catfished, I realized that there really are horrible people out there, pedophiles who use naive children, people blackmailing others for nudes, people who take others' money by manipulating them etc. But not all of us are like that. Everyone has a reason for doing bad things, some of them are justified and others not, and I really wish I knew what my reason for it was.

Also needed to remove this comment:

It's not your fault. End of story.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS JUSTIFIABLE CATFISHING

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A BENEVOLENT CATFISH

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS TOTAL LACK OF FAULT FOR BAD BEHAVIOR

These are just lies catfish tell themselves to dampen the profound negative impact they have on themselves and others, or to even put a positive spin on their own, personal, biased brand of catfishing. So many catfish are grasping desperately for reasons to justify continuing their worthless and destructive behavior, so when somebody comes to the internet and says essentially, "Well, there are plenty of bad catfish, yeah, BUT there are some ok catfish too, and these specific reasons and behaviors are actually totally fine," delusional catfish that don't want to feel so bad will latch onto that belief to fuel their continued behavior. It doesn't work that way. All catfishing is bad, always. I'm sure many of you have heard this proverb from time to time: "We judge others on their worst behaviors and we judge ourselves on our best intentions." This isn't meant to be just this matter-of-fact "Yeah, duh" statement. It's meant to call out the flaw in people's reasoning that creates conflict between them, and allows people to justify their bad behavior toward others.

The bottom line:

CATFISH APOLOGISM AND CATFISH EXCEPTIONALISM ALSO BREAK RULE 4

Just don't do it.