Kittenfishing is the online dating phenomenon you’re probably a victim of

What is Kittenfishing and why is everyone doing it?

We’ve all heard of Catfishing – when someone invents a fake persona while online dating, luring people into a relationship or a meeting under false pretences.

While most of us have worried about getting Catfished on our various Tinder or Bumble dates, it is pretty rare for cases to be so extreme and it only happens to very few people.

There is however a new online dating trend to watch out for and it’s something that we’ve all probably experienced without even knowing it.

Introducing Kittenfishing, a watered down form of Catfishing that nearly all of us have either experienced or done ourselves. Yes, really.

So what exactly is it? While Catfishing involves taking on a whole new identity, Kittenfishing is on a much smaller scale, with the concept involving misrepresenting your appearance while online dating.

While you may think, ‘I’ve never done that’ or ‘that’s never happened to me’, you might want to think again. Kittenfishing can range from anything from lying about your job and age to leading people to make false assumptions about your height and weight.

The term ‘Kittenfishing’ was invented by dating app Hinge who described it as a ‘phenomenon of well-intentioned dating app users, presenting themselves in an unrealistically positive light.’

When explaining how to spot a Kittenfisher or self-diagnose, it continued: ‘A Kittenfisher’s profile is often comprised of photos that are outdated, heavily-filtered, or strategically angled, text that has been ghost-written by a particularly witty friend, and height that has been rounded by more than two inches.’

If this sounds like you, we hate to break it to you but you might be a Kittenfisher.

If you’ll excuse us we’re off to update our Tinder profiles.