Sadfishing is when someone posts a sad tale of woe online and then might receive replies expressing sympathy for their unhappy plight. Sometimes the tale of woe is short and dour, sometimes it isn’t a tale at all and merely a word or two of sadness, while other times the posting goes all out and ostensibly pleads for vast armies of outsized herculean support.
As receipts or proof that the topic is a current hot trend, take a glance at these momentous headlines:The moniker is a play on the more famous “catfishing” phrase that has been bandied around for a long time and spurred even more online and offline attention than sadfishing. It is almost an ironclad guarantee that any posting that distinctly smells of or has even the faintest scent of sadfishing is going to get all four of the above variations coming directly at it. Lots and lots of such responses. There is no viable means to know for sure what the person is trying to do and therefore all replies are conveyed as a shotgun blast.
The general assumption is that young people such as teens are the more likely segment that will do sadfishing posts. In turn, the assumption is that young people such as teens will be the likely respondents. In that sense, it is a means for teens to communicate with other teens. This has been going on since the beginning of humankind, though done in person or possibly in writing via conventional pencil and paper correspondence.Sorry, no, that’s not the real world that we live in.
“Sadfishing is posting emotional or dramatic personal content to gain sympathy or attention from the online community.”“Sadfishing is increasingly being used to accuse people of attention-seeking and criticize or belittle their online content, whether they were sadfishing or not.” “For example, someone might post, “I can’t believe how much I’m struggling right now. Nothing ever seems to go right for me,” accompanied by a sad selfie and a crying emoji, without providing specific details.”
“Sadfishing, or the exaggeration of one's emotional state online to generate sympathy, is a maladaptive behavior that can negatively affect mental health.” “In particular, our results highlight the importance of coping skills training for individuals who sadfish.” I urge that researchers take up the mantle and give additional scrutiny to the role of anxious attachment in sadfishing. I mention this because much of the research on sadfishing seems to take a scattergun approach. Each new study tries to find a new or different angle. It would be promising to lean into prior findings when suitable and see how far those results can be extended.