The Facebook Groups Full of Fake People

I went into the depths of Facebook so you don't have to

Welcome back to CHH, regular programming. Heads up that I’m offering a 20% off discount on all annual subscriptions to celebrate the fact that I finally quit my day job! Anyway…

I don’t use Facebook often, but when I do, it’s usually for my mom groups and occasionally marketplace. But the other day, I came across a post on this group, which seems like a pretty normal Facebook group for people looking to offload old dressers:

For the most part, this group is pretty normal and is doing a good thing. The admins are active, and they seem to be genuine humans organizing food drives and other opportunities for members to get things they need for free:

But there’s something weird going on too, and I don’t think it has anything to do with the admins, or even the group. It seems like every few posts, someone does this:

Invariably, it’s a selfie or a series of selfies with no context other than the caption “Wanted to introduce myself” or “Wanted to show you this pic I took.”

Ordinarily, I’d say selfies like these were catfish or love scammers trawling for easy marks. But what’s baffling about them is that they’re usually not terribly young or attractive people. They’re very average people, often middle aged or older, often female.

Now, older male images are typically used to lure unsuspecting female victims, because older women tend to prefer men closer to their own age, while older men might be more swayed by young female catfish. But no! These images are just..random middle-aged ladies. Completely average-looking and unremarkable. If they’re trying to scam someone, who exactly is the target?

I should point out that occasionally, an attractive young female image is used, but people usually figure out it’s fake right away.

You might be thinking that these selfie-takers are genuine people who are just too old to know how to use Facebook appropriately, but that doesn’t explain why almost all of them are using the same caption.

What the fuck is going on?