RinHaru Catfishing Scandal

The RinHaru Catfishing(/Sockpuppeting) Scandal occurred within the Free! fandom in 2016, and involved a notable RinHaru shipper catfishing other fans by stealing another Twitter user's selfies, as well as sockpuppeting between three moderately active accounts. It is considered a significant event within the MakoHaru vs RinHaru ship war.
The event took place largely on Twitter and the swimming-anime community on Dreamwidth, the Free! anon meme. Because the catfishing was exposed first, it is nominally more tied to the event than the term "sockpuppeting."
== History ==
On May 30, 2016, a Twitter account by the name of fishreceipts was created, appearing to have the sole purpose of exposing the catfisher in question. Its first tweet, of two total, was a mention to user @wormkink, informing them that another user, ana @kozummes, had been stealing their selfies for an entire year.https://x.com/fishreceipts/status/737463650924007425?s=20 Tweet by fishreceipts: "@wormkink this account has been stealing your selfies for an entire year:" Attached to the tweet are four screencaps of tweets by ana @kozummes, seemingly posting selfies. Posted May 30, 2016. Accessed February 6, 2024. Some of the selfies were from 2012, four years prior to the scandal.https://swimming-anime.dreamwidth.org/5492.html?thread=23896436#cmt23896436 Comment by anonymous, referencing: "...You used an innocent person's photos dating all the way back to 2012 which is a crime itself and creepy as fuck. YOU CAPPED VIDEOS YOU FOUND OF THEM AND USED THOSE FOR YOUR SELFIE POSTS..."
The user had been considered a BNF among RinHaru shippershttps://x.com/faidfIourite/status/737718050816962560?s=20 Tweet by faidflourite: "ana and effie were very prominent figures on the wank meme for being rh bnfs of sorts." Posted May 31, 2016. Accessed February 6, 2024., so fans started vaguely posting about it. The topic first made its way to swimming-anime on May 31, 2016, referencing these vague postshttps://swimming-anime.dreamwidth.org/5492.html?thread=23765620#cmt23765620 Comment on swimming-anime: "saw some posts about some shit going down, but am terribly uninformed about any and all so called "important" fans - on the other hand, I fucking LOVE these kind of stories, I get the best flashbacks. can someone properly inform?." Posted May 31, 2016. Accessed February 6, 2024.. 
Shortly after the first comment, user luffay on Twitter (now saltkath), posted a detailed summary of the situationhttps://twitter.com/saItkath/status/737543916644229120 Tweet by saltkath. Posted May 31, 2016, at 07:19AM UTC. Accessed February 6, 20214.:
The tweet spread across the fandom, and was both summarized and linked on swimming-anime. In addition to the catfishing, the connected sockpuppet accounts were revealed to be Ana (@kozummes), Effie (@matsuoking, another BNF), and Eva (@slytherize). Users noted their similar typing styles, grammatical quirks, and taste in Tumblr themeshttps://swimming-anime.dreamwidth.org/5492.html?thread=23767412#cmt23767412 Comment by anonymous: "slytherize locked because she's probably guilty - ppl asked her for a photo and she keeps talking about her brother needing to go to the hospital etc lol. she showed up right when ana stopped tweeting.
ana and effie "knew" each other (the girl behind it spent months like, planning this out) but their writing styles were the same and effie too disappeared entirely once ana became more active. each persona wou like, buff the next one up too like effie would promote ana and ana promoted eva (slytherize) etc
it's kind of baffling because effie was well liked, i don't understand why she would uproot that for a new persona, but i guess we'll never know". Posted May 31, 2016. Accessed February 6, 2024.. One user also speculated that the catfisher may have known @wormkink, the user whose photos they stole, as they were both Brazilian fans who were in One Direction fandom, and that Ana/@kozummes had posted pictures of them that were not publicly onlinehttps://swimming-anime.dreamwidth.org/5492.html?thread=23887988#cmt23887988 Comment by anonymous: "but ppl are speculating that she actually knew the girl whose photos she stole, and even as matsuoking she mentioned a "girl she crushed on who had blue hair and sent me photos".. not to mention theyre both brazilian and were/are into 1D... and she got photos not uploaded to twitter or anywhere public and unless she's a computer mastermind, she probably couldn't have access unless she knows that girl personally". Posted June 1, 2016. Accessed February 6, 2024.. Another user noted a pattern of Ana and Effie attempting to get mutual friends to say nice things about the other when one of them was conveniently "offline."https://swimming-anime.dreamwidth.org/5492.html?thread=23891572#cmt23891572 Comment by anonymous: "i agree about the testing us about liking her, bc when effie was gone ana would always be like "i miss effie :'(" and like.. prompt people into agreeing w her... and she also replied to literally EVERY tweet where anyone mentioned missing effie lol and as "eva" she'd always talk about ana so like there's definitely something going on". Posted June 1, 2016. Accessed February 6, 2024. Ana and Effie's accounts got quickly deleted on the same day after these accusations, and Eva's shortly thereafter.
According to an anonymous comment, users on Twitter who were familiar with one of these personas (notably Ana @kozummes) started posting "receipts" and talked about how they had already "hated her."https://swimming-anime.dreamwidth.org/5492.html?thread=23874420#cmt23874420 Comment by anonymous: "idk about you but what's funny to me is the effie/ana/eva thing and not the fact that she stole that girls identity? like i'm mostly just amused looking back on my idiotic fandom life and wondering how the hell i didn't notice
also all these #receipts for ana are coming out and everyone is talking about how they hated her and it's just so funny." Posted June 1, 2016. Accessed February 6, 2024. This led to another anonymous user making a comment: "[RinHarus] keep proving what people said, they can't let drama go and keep making it a bigger issue/spreading it to even bigger parts of fandom/people who weren't involved"https://swimming-anime.dreamwidth.org/5492.html?thread=23882100#cmt23882100 Comment by anonymous. Posted June 1, 2016. Accessed February 6, 2024.. Anonymous comments then ranged from being sympathetic towards the people who had known the sockpuppeter/catfisher, to people noting that it looked so obvious now that it should have been obvious.
On June 1, 2016, Dreamwidth user kazuyas posted a logged-in comment on swimming-anime, expressing outrage at the discussions on the meme:https://swimming-anime.dreamwidth.org/5492.html?thread=23870324#cmt23870324 Comment by kazuyas. Posted June 1, 2016. Accessed February 6, 2024.
Many anonymous users were amused by the comment:
At some point, Ana/Effie/Eva may have also posted to the anon meme on June 1, 2016, pretending to be one of Effie's followers. Though this was never confirmed, the comment got a deluge of accusations from other anonymous users identifying them as such.https://swimming-anime.dreamwidth.org/5492.html?thread=23895156#cmt23895156 Comment from anonymous: "ugh i used to follow effie when i was still active on free fandom and i had a big admiration-crush on her i'm glad i'm basically over free by now but if she is made up i'm just thinking about how long i spent actually trying to make friends with her. also i remember i myself seeing her posting pics when i was still following her with my free twitter? but weirdly enough once or twice i felt this weird sense of deja-vu as if i had seen the same pic posted by herself before, which could go to prove the pics this person used to go as effie were catfished too... sigh now i'm just a bit upset at the time i spent trying to get closer to this person because she seemed so nice, did she fake the niceness as well??? i'm sorry for the ones who were actually closer to her and still tightly involved with free fandom :/ idk why someone would go around stealing pics from people from other fandoms when they could just have been themselves and have had their place in fandom as everyone else." Posted June 1, 2016. Accessed February 6, 2024.
After a comment that was deemed over the line by the mod, the thread was frozen. Discussion of the scandal quickly disappeared from the meme.https://swimming-anime.dreamwidth.org/5492.html?thread=23918196#cmt23918196 Comment by anonymous: "Ok apologies in advance for getting long with this response but I'm still not sure this whole drama is pitiful or funny. However, it's obvious this person is mentally ill. I'm no specialist, but just some empathy usage will show a obvious constant need of reaffirmation people liked them, and if to achieve that someone needs to build up entire new ids, then that's definitely not what I'd pin as neurotypical. But from what I see, the whole catfishing barely had malicious goals behind it and all they would get out of it was validation from a small group of irrelevant anime nerds? That's exactly where it gets funny because fuck, if I spent my time catfishing I'd at least go for hot people with money which is the opposite of what anime nerds are. Which leads me to think they actually really liked the ones they were close to/real friends with? Some twisted need to feel reassured they were liked back got in the way, but if they genuinely helped and displayed affection towards people and took no advantage of being close to you, I don't see what else is the profit for them/what is there to earn through this whole situation lol
Neuroatypical people can't always draw limits but they're still capable to genuinely love and care for others. Actually, sadly, their fucked up brain chemicals can mess it up to the point they start craving reassurance at unhealthy levels, what feels like the case at question.
Good advice to all of your kids and your fandom culture these days is seeking medical help when in need. Online friendships can be nice and last but it shouldn't become your only way to seek comfort, you need to rely on way more than that if you have some sort of mental health issue, this going to the people affected as well, you must be careful and avoid creating this vicious cycle of online support that, unfortunately, can lead to addiction." Posted June 2, 2016. 
Reply by swimming-anime: "except low self esteem isn't a mental illness. and neither is being an asshole, funnily enough.
i'm going to be freezing your comments about this from now on. if you want to peddle armchair psychologist bullshit to your old friends, do it in their tumblr askboxes, and stop trolling the anon meme." Posted June 3, 2016. Thread accessed February 6, 2024.
== Impact ==
The scandal took place in the middle of a four year gap between Free!'s second season, Free! - Eternal Summer (2014), which was intended to be its final season, and its third season, Free! Dive to the Future (2018). The fandom was not considered very active then; most users had moved onto other sports anime, notably Haikyuu, which was airing at the time and was also discussed at one point during the scandal, involving shipping wank.https://swimming-anime.dreamwidth.org/5492.html?thread=23885428#cmt23885428 Comment by anonymous: "hmmm this is fandom/ship related but apparently ana used to shade this other user about shipping some "taboo" haikyuu ship (it wasnt even taboo lol) and when the user confronted her about it she was like "oh i wasnt aiming this at you i was more talking about [friend of the user that she doesnt even follow]'s tweets" and sent her like 5 full length essays on why this friend is wrong about everything and finished it off with "see this is how you apologise" when she spent like 8000 words not apologising
and the kicker is that the friend that ana kept bitching about was actually really tight with effie, so obviously something happened to make her hate them lol". Posted June 1, 2016. Accessed February 6, 2024.
Despite the BNF status of Effie and Ana, after the threads got frozen on swimming-anime, the public discussion on Twitter soon died down. Tweets and accounts during that time period may also be deleted; not many other reactions during the time can be accessed in 2024. @wormkink, upon being told that their selfies were used by a catfisher, seemed deeply disturbed by this newshttps://x.com/fishreceipts/status/737491419724664832?s=20 Tweet by fishreceipts: "Hi; so sorry for everything you're going through right now. I have a feeling I know who stole your photos and am willing to DM!." Posted May 30, 2016. Accessed February 7, 2024., but appeared to be active on Twitter for several years afterward. 
Regardless, it is still memorable to this day.
==Citations==
Category:2016 Events
Category:Scandals
Category:Free!