Every Facebook group for moms has one participant whose seemingly fabulous life makes you both kind of hate her but also be kind of obsessed with her. In this one Facebook group I joined shortly after having my daughter, her name was Emma.
Emma lived on New York’s Upper East Side. She was the adoring stay-at-home mother to both her biological child, Charlotte, and her husband Nathan’s older daughter from a previous relationship. Nathan was a cardiologist, but, I regularly speculated, had to have family money as well because a doctor’s salary alone would never fund their ridiculous lifestyle, which was evidenced by her posts to the group.
Emma’s life seemed easy and also fun. She had at least three strollers. Nathan doted on her, she told us, calling her “bunny.” She had an impressive education but didn’t have to work. She still had a nanny, though, who she adored so much she asked the group which color YSL handbag she should buy for her for Christmas. She referred to their “house in EH” (East Hampton, I presume). She casually bought herself a ring that cost several thousand dollars while Nathan watched the Super Bowl. I know this because she regularly crowdsourced moms in the group for their fashion opinions.
“Shopping for a new bag and stuck between these two,” she wrote in March. She was deciding between a “Gucci Jackie in white” and “the Polene Numero Dix in Cognac.” She noted the Polene ($500) was more affordable than the Gucci ($2,950) but “price doesn’t really matter.”
Emma was the group’s obvious Main Character. I’d search her by name in the Facebook group because her contributions were just that entertaining. Sometimes her posts were semi-relatable, like screenshots she’d share of text messages sent to her by her mother-in-law, Alexandra. According to the texts, Alexandra, a New York City socialite, was a kooky, privileged Boy Mom gone wild. She haggled Emma and Nathan about where Charlotte, who wasn’t yet one year old, would go to private school. She advised her to wean Charlotte, so as to not “ruin” her breasts. She sent her La Perla lingerie as a gift, writing “Baby Number #2?”
For me, online mom groups are a perfect blend of two of my most primal instincts: extreme nosiness and a tendency to fall down long, winding internet rabbit holes. Because these groups aren’t just a place to read real reviews on expensive baby products or get advice about nap schedules and sleep training. They are rich and vibrant communities where moms pour out their hearts and lives for public consumption.
Many moms crave connection, and in 2023 they turn to the internet to try and find their village, the tribe of fellow women in the trenches that may be the only people that understand what they are going through. In these groups, a microcosm of real community develops, with main characters, infighting, drama, and gossip, but also love and support.
That’s one side of the coin. The other can be more complex. Because as fun as it is to poke around in someone’s life as they share it, these online mothering communities can also become a place to judge and be judged. A place to build yourself up (“At least I’m not struggling as much as that chick”) but also wallow in anxiety and self-doubt (“Her child is already crawling?”; “I wish I could afford that brand of pajamas”). Especially in the fraught and overwhelming mindfuck of early motherhood, it’s easy to self-flagellate by forcing yourself to read about how the other half lives.
Emma was the perfect specimen: beautiful, rich, well-rested, and funny, with entertaining drama to boot. How could we measure up?
Well, we really couldn’t, because Emma was a fake.
It happened on Sunday. In a very serious, long post, the admins of the group made an announcement. It had come to their attention that a group member had been using a fake account, and possibly multiple, to spin fake narratives in the group. After a weekend researching and, they say, confirming the member was a catfish, they made the decision to boot them from the group.
While they didn’t name the poster by name, group members soon sussed out who the culprit was. Emma, and Alexandra, had been fake all along. (The Facebook profile for the Emma account has indeed been booted from the group, and all her posts were erased).
This was the Facebook group version of the Scandoval. Everyone, including me, was shocked. Sure, was it weird that, when I tried to find Emma, Nathan, and Alexandra in the wild on Google, nothing came up, even when I searched his name plus cardiologist plus NYC? Yes. Did I choose to ignore this obvious red flag to continue basking in the delight of Emma’s content? Most definitely. Some of my fellow group members swear they smelled a rat the entire time—how could you not when a person puts in writing “Money is no object!” while bag shopping—but most of us were completely floored.
Catfishing has been prevalent in internet communities for as long as they’ve been around, and usually catfishers have malevolent goals. The internet is full of tales about con artists who feign illness or tragedy in order to squeeze money or emotional energy out of unsuspecting victims, or who solicit sex by posing as a totally different person. But Emma never asked for money, and she never, as far as I can tell, emotionally manipulated anyone in the group to the point of harm. Her goal, it seems, had been simply to entertain us and herself.
In the comments, it seemed like everyone breathed out a huge sigh of relief. No wonder we could never compare to Emma; she wasn’t even real all along! We aren’t falling short because we can’t buy our nanny a YSL bag, it was just all some big game. It was cathartic to laugh and realize we had all been so thoroughly duped. Thank God!
Perhaps this is why the group’s overwhelming response has been different than many victims of catfishing. While some people said they were angry or worried that an imposter had invaded the group and their safe space, many laughed it off and came together by speculating about Emma’s real identity or motives. Was this a bored teenager? An aspiring novelist testing out her material on unsuspecting test subjects? If so, many people wrote, we would read her book. The world-building, the character development, and the drama were chef’s kiss. She had us on the edge of our seats. Colleen Hoover found dead!
Yes, Emma’s over-the-top lifestyle probably touched off some feelings of insecurity and inadequacy for some women in the group, but I hope the story of Emma can teach new moms—especially those of us that lurk or actively particulate in online communities designed specifically for us— that it’s pointless to try and measure up to some impossible standard we may see for mothering online. In many cases, it literally may not even exist.
