Where it sits
Kittenfishing sits in the grey zone between honest and fake — real person, flattering fiction around the edges.
How it unfolds
The best angle
The profile leans on the most flattering photos — a few years old, well-lit, carefully cropped — and the most impressive details.
The rounding up
Height gains an inch or two, the job title inflates, the hobbies get more interesting. Nothing outright invented, everything nudged upward.
The match
It works — the polished version attracts interest, and a date gets set based on the enhanced picture.
The gap
In person the real and the profile don't quite line up. The person is genuine; the disappointment comes from the distance between the pitch and the truth.
Tell it apart
| Aspect | Kittenfishing | Wokefishing |
|---|---|---|
| What's faked | Looks and stats | Beliefs and values |
| Depth | Surface details | Core identity |
| Found out | On the first date | Once you're invested |
| Read as | Mild vanity | A serious breach |
| Revealed | On the first date | Once you're attached |
| Seen as | Mild embellishment | Serious breach |
Kittenfishing flatters the surface — old photos, an added inch, a better job title. Wokefishing falsifies values, performing beliefs you do not hold in order to attract someone. One embellishes the packaging; the other fakes the conscience.
What it doesn't mean
Kittenfishing embellishes a real person who does show up in person; catfishing invents a fake identity — often using someone else's photos — for a person who never truly exists as portrayed.
It's framed as extremely common — one of the most frequent dating faux pas — because light photo-editing and flattering self-description are nearly universal on apps.
What it really means
Somewhere between an honest profile and an outright fake sits kittenfishing: the real you, rounded up. The photos are genuinely yours — just the ones from three years and one good haircut ago. The height is close. The job title is technically defensible. Nothing is invented, exactly; everything is simply nudged toward the most flattering version of the truth. It's fishing with a lure that looks a lot like you, only shinier.
The word, coined by the dating app Hinge in 2017, is a deliberate junior to catfishing. A catfish invents a whole identity and hides from the reveal; a kittenfish shows up — that's the point. They are the person in the photos, more or less, which is why the letdown, when it comes, isn't shock so much as a quiet sense of the gap: the person in front of you and the person in the profile aren't quite the same size.
And here's the uncomfortable part: almost everyone does a little of it. A good angle, a favourite photo, the interesting hobby listed above the boring ones — the app practically asks for it. Kittenfishing isn't a special breed of liar so much as the ordinary vanity of self-presentation, stretched one notch too far past what the first date can quietly forgive.
Where it comes from
a smaller, milder version — a baby cat
from catfishing — luring with a false image
A 'kitten' version of catfishing: a lesser, subtler deception than a full catfish.
- 2017
The dating app Hinge coins the term in a June 21 article for the milder-than-catfishing deception.
- 2017 onward
Enters mainstream dating vocabulary through HuffPost UK, NBC News and others.
In real life
- His profile says six foot; in person he is a confident five foot ten.
- Her main photo really is her — at her cousin's wedding, five years and one excellent hairdresser ago.
- Entrepreneur on the profile turns out to mean selling vintage jackets online at weekends.
Questions
Q01What is kittenfishing?
Kittenfishing is presenting an exaggerated, flattering version of your real self on a dating app — using old or heavily edited photos, inflating your job or height, or embellishing your interests — without going as far as inventing a fake identity. It's a milder cousin of catfishing.
Q02What's the difference between kittenfishing and catfishing?
It's a difference of degree. A kittenfisher is a real person who exaggerates and will actually show up on a date. A catfisher invents a fake identity, often using someone else's photos, for a person who doesn't exist as portrayed and typically avoids meeting.
Q03Is kittenfishing lying?
It's a soft form of dishonesty — embellishment rather than fabrication. Small flattery (a good-angle photo) shades into kittenfishing when the gap between profile and reality is big enough to feel like a bait-and-switch when you meet in person.
Q04Where did the term kittenfishing come from?
The dating app Hinge coined it in a June 21, 2017 article, building on 'catfishing.' The 'kitten' signals a smaller, milder version of the deception — a real person made to look better than reality, rather than a wholly invented one.
Sources
- kittenfishing (etymology: Hinge, 2017) — Wiktionary.
- PSA: Kittenfishing Is the New Dating App Tactic to Watch Out For (Hayley Folk) — The Knot.
Words around it
- Wokefishingkittenfishing fakes surface traits — looks, height, job; wokefishing fakes deeper values.
- Soft Launchingboth curate an image online — one edits the self, the other edits the relationship.
- Situationshipan embellished profile can start a connection that never quite matches the pitch — and stalls undefined.