Unknown Quantity: The Excessive College Catfish is the newest Netflix true crime obsession, and rightfully so. The story is intriguing on many ranges, particularly because it delves into the deception that may happen on the web, the place anybody can fake to be whomever they wish to be. Netflix has delved into related territory earlier than with Candy Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare, a British true-crime documentary that debuted on the platform virtually a 12 months in the past. Whereas the beats of the story differ from Unknown Quantity, it nonetheless follows an identical trajectory, the place the result seems to be very surprising as a result of the offender is somebody surprising and nearer than anybody ever realized.
Candy Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare attracts its true crime inspiration from the 2021 podcast of the identical identify, which focuses on the story of Kirat Assi, a girl who spent years being deceived by somebody she believed was turning into a romantic accomplice named Bobby Jandu. Assi, a profitable radio presenter, is at a stage in life the place most of her pals have discovered “the one” and are marrying and beginning households. Assi needs this for herself, particularly after ending an 18-year relationship.
Within the midst of this, she meets a person named Bobby Jandu on Fb, a handsome heart specialist who tends to say all the correct issues. Their correspondence begins on a pleasant observe, however quickly it turns romantic, no less than on-line. For almost 10 years, Assi was in a romantic relationship with Bobby. Suspicion grew as each try to fulfill in individual was met with excuses, a few of which grew to become more and more elaborate. As their “relationship” turns into years, Assi makes strikes to fulfill Bobby it doesn’t matter what, and what she learns exposes one of the vital elaborate catfishing schemes ever.
How Was Kirat Assi Deceived?
The Netflix documentary does an awesome job of organising who Assi is and why she would fall for somebody like Bobby on-line. There was strain for her to seek out the correct man, notably due to her Sikh background, which pushes for marriage and a lifelong dedication between a person and a girl. It is a strain that she places on herself, as her mother and father, who’re interviewed within the documentary, simply wished their daughter to seek out the correct man and be pleased. Bobby additionally comes from a Sikh background in London, making him mutually intriguing to Assi, along with his seemingly beauty and accomplishments.
Bobby relies in Kenya, however shares mutual pals inside the Sikh neighborhood, no less than in accordance with Fb. They focus on their varied relationship points on-line, with Assi detailing her long-term relationship that has its share of issues. On the similar time, Bobby, who broadcasts he is getting married at one level in the course of the years of correspondence, additionally sees his relationship hitting a roadblock. As they develop nearer by means of our on-line world, Bobby expresses that he is in love along with her, and Assi has these exact same emotions. Nevertheless, crimson flags quickly come up, though her real emotions for Bobby immediate her to disregard them at first.
Bobby can by no means appear to fulfill in individual, and his causes for not having the ability to are as dramatic as they get. At one level, he claimed to be within the witness safety program in New York Metropolis. He says that is after being shot in Kenya throughout a shady enterprise deal. Assi questions how he can nonetheless chat along with her, regardless of being in witness safety, however he explains he is breaking the principles for her. In different cases, he tells Assi that he’s affected by a number of life-threatening sicknesses (full with footage from his hospital mattress), which additionally supplies one other excuse as to why he cannot meet up along with her. Since she’s in London, New York Metropolis is not a hop, skip, and a bounce away for his first story, and being caught in a hospital mattress for his second excuse would are inclined to make bodily conferences unimaginable as effectively.
Though Bobby prevented assembly in individual, he started exerting management and manipulation, insisting on understanding each element of Assi’s life. Bobby wished her to be out there in her room and by her laptop in order that she could possibly be there for him always. Assi was so in love with him by this level that, though she would surprise why she would wait round for somebody who wasn’t bodily there, his persona was so robust on-line that she felt the necessity to take heed to him and be there for him each time he wanted. He even examined her loyalty in weird methods, at one level asking if he joined ISIS, would she run away with him. Her intestine response was to say, “Hell no,” however, due to his delicate medical situation, she believed an sincere reply like that could possibly be lethal for Bobby.
Who Is the Actual Bobby Jandu?
A couple of years into their relationship, Assi turns into more and more suspicious about why Bobby will not meet up in individual, so she enlists the assistance of a non-public investigator. Via this transfer, she finds Bobby’s final identified handle and decides to confront him. In one of many extra shocking moments of the documentary, she goes to Bobby’s home, and he’s the person she believes him to be, no less than within the footage. Bobby, who’s interviewed within the Netflix doc, explains that he had by no means met or talked to Assi earlier than, and he seems to be married to a girl named Sanj. This sends Assi right into a world of deep confusion, the place she believes he is mendacity to save lots of face, till Bobby calls on the opposite line.
In a shocking twist of occasions, and after in depth investigation, it’s revealed that the faux Bobby is definitely Assi’s cousin, Simran Bhogal. Her cousin’s involvement dates again to the start of the catfishing, when Assi was first contacted by Bhogal’s ex-boyfriend on Fb, below the guise that JJ wished to win Bhogal again. As Assi and JJ started to correspond, Assi was notified that he had all of a sudden died from an allergic response, and Bhogal put her involved with JJ’s brother, the notorious Bobby, to supply her assist in the course of the troublesome time.
Since Bhogal is the one who linked Assi to all of the “gamers” concerned, she informs her cousin that she’s going to report the catfish scheme to the police, with Bhogal initially verifying the data that she supplied to Assi. It wasn’t till the following day that Bhogal confessed to being the fictional Bobby to her cousin, which additionally concerned 60 different faux profiles created of Bobby’s intimate circle, together with household and pals. Assi grew to become shut with all of the individuals created by Bhogal, so her catfishing was so elaborate that it had her cousin caring not solely about Bobby, but additionally about everybody else in his life.
So why did Bhogal catfish her cousin for years? It was a scheme to regulate her cousin and preserve her depending on the person she created and on her household. She did not need her cousin to kind an emotional and bodily relationship with another person which may drive her away from the household dwelling. There may be additionally a degree of jealousy and management past retaining Assi near the household. After a sure level, Bhogal herself grew to become obsessive about sustaining that management.
Ultimately, though Assi reported her cousin to the police, they defined to her that the true sufferer was Bobby, who had his identification stolen. Moreover, there is no such thing as a formal regulation towards catfishing, so no expenses have been introduced towards Bhogal. Nevertheless, Assi did take her cousin to civil court docket, citing the misuse of personal info and harassment, which resulted in Bhogal having to pay what Assi claimed have been “substantial damages.”
Assi has additionally stood as the larger individual by means of all of this. Regardless of the years she was manipulated, she by no means wished pure revenge towards her cousin. She simply desired accountability and did not need others who heard her story to hunt retribution towards her cousin, both. She hopes her story will make clear the harms of catfishing and encourage stricter authorized penalties for such manipulation. Candy Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare is at the moment streaming on Netflix.
Candy Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare
- Launch Date
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October 16, 2024
- Runtime
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82 Minutes
- Director
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Lyttanya Shannon
