About

Cockfishing, also known as Catcocking, is a slang term used to describe the act of manipulating or lying a photograph of one's penis in order to make it appear larger in size. The term is a derivation of the phrase "Catfish", which is the act of assuming a false social media account to initiate an online romantic relationship.

Origin

In 2010, the film Catfish was released in the United States, popularizing the term "Catfish." Three years later, on January 14th, 2013, Twitter user @twobigforyou compared the two terms, tweeting, ^[1] "#catfish #cockfished" (shown below).

Spread

On July 25th, 2014, Instagram ^[2] user @djkillakal posted a Confused Black Girl image macro with the caption "That moment when the dick don't match the dick pics…Cockfished" (shown below).

On January 11th, 2017, Urban Dictionary ^[3] user Barkerdlr defined the term, "When a guy talks about how big his cock is and sends duck pics at a clever angle, making his penis look larger than it is" (shown below).

Nearly three years later, on September 24th, 2019, Twitter^[4] user @writhewill tweeted a close-up photograph of a banana using the iPhone 11 Pro's Camera. They captioned the photograph, "iphone 11 pro….boys, we got em." The post received more than 285,000 likes and 54,000 retweets in six days (shown below, left).

That day, others shared the photographs and made jokes about "cockfishing." Twitter^[5] user @litty__titty retweeted the photograph with the caption, "everyone gonna b out here getting cockfished." Within one week, the tweet received more than 338,000 likes and 54,000 retweets (shown below, center). Twitter^[6] user @Ultra15151 tweeted, "GREAT GOOGLY MOOGLY MY COCK IS GONNA LOOK HUGE ON THE IPHONE 11!!!" Within one week, the tweet received more than 11,000 likes and 1,000 retweets (shown below, right).

Several media outlets covered the term following the tweet, including PopBuzz,^[7] The Mirror,^[8] The Sun^[9] and more.

Search Interest

External References