Does sadfishing really work?

The term "sadfishing", defined by the Journal of American College Health in 2021, refers to social media users who "exaggerate their emotional state online to generate sympathy".

- SANDEEP GOYAL

It could be in the form of a sad photo, an ominous quote, or a vague post.

It was actually journalist Rebecca Reid who coined the term in 2019 after a questionable Instagram post by Kris Jenner featuring her daughter Kendall Jenner (28.2 million Twitter followers). In the post, Ms Jenner described her daughter's "debilitating struggle" with acne and received a large amount of sympathetic responses from her followers. However, it was later revealed that her post was just an elaborate marketing gimmick for her skincare partnership with brand Proactiv, and Ms Reid labelled her behaviour as "sadfishing". Ms Reid explained sadfishing as "when someone uses their emotional problems to hook an audience on the internet." She described it as the "emotional equivalent of clickbait". It essentially amounts to “performing sadness online for sympathy and/or attention," she said.