Imagine it is in the 90s, no smartphones, no social media and nothing…just simple hi and hello to all the friends you have and by the time the news about each other comes out, the issue is already done and resolved. What makes 90s special is that there are telephone directories and operators where you will know who called you and who tried to even contact you on your pager because everything is recorded and you can ask the operator. But we all know that we are in the 2000s, where everything is accessible and you can literally use anything anonymously, and we cannot escape the technology but what will you do if this technology ruins you and your entire life, worst, your family? And you cannot even do a single thing but to wait for investigators to dig in deep to know where it started?

Well, this new documentary released by Netflix, Unknown Number: The High School Catfish, is about a girl who is being bullied with her boyfriend by an unknown number for 24months. Lauryn and Owen are teen-couple dating like the normal couples we know form high school until one day, Lauryn received a message form an unknown number telling her that Owen is cheating on her and basically, telling nasty stuff about her boyfriend and after the next few months, the bullying became worse, making it seem like the texter is actually following Lauryn and Owen around school. Parents of both teens were alarmed and decided to involve the police and investigations happened but it took them so many months and so many suspects to be able to decode who the real culprit was.

*Warning: Some spoilers coming up….

The Verdict

Okay, I gotta share you my experience when it comes to catfishing…I did had few experiences before when I was in high school and university, there was no way you’ll know that easy if you are getting catfished or not, because there’s limited technology to do so, especially when people are using fake profiles, coz sometimes fake profiles are almost believable before. But now that everyone can actually pin point who is using fake profiles, then it is so much easier to actually know who’s who…but what if in a small town, you all know everyone and someone is actually trying to tear you apart but you are not sure who it is coz everyone around you are just…the people you knew all your life?

You see, documentary shocked me. The truth behind the story is just unimaginable. Imagine having someone close to you, sneaking around and stalking you and your boyfriend and trying to attack your self esteem just for you to feel bad and leave your boyfriend? It’s so high school, right? Well, at first, I thought it was one of the friends of Owen who were most likely jealous of Lauryn but in the end, I stand corrected and stunned. Turns out, it’s not even the school bully, Khloe, it’s not even any of the people related to Owen, but it is someone who Lauryn thought she could trust the most…Kendra, her mother. Imagine having an adult, get obsessed with ruining her daughter’s relationship and stalk her daughter’s boyfriend just to continue the drama. Lying to her husband that she has been working, only to find out that she has been stalking these teenagers.

I know, it was shocking and the whole time, Kendra was there in the documentary trying to act that what she did was okay. Owen and Lauryn broke up eventually before they even found out. Thankfully, there are ways to know whose number was used on apps that creates unknown numbers and that’s how they found out it was Lauryn’s mother.

Definitely not for the faint hearted because you will hate this mother so much that you won’t imagine how she ruined her daughter’s life. Well, she did say that she didn’t started it but she continued it to know who the culprit was(she’s talking about the first texter) but I really don’t buy it. I think there’s so much more to that story that the movie didn’t really showed.

All in all, the documentary was fine, but not too satisfactory because there were so many missing pieces. I would’ve paid more to watch how the investigation ended, where is Lauryn and Owen now, was Kendra sent away from Lauryn and etc…I believe that they could’ve given us a little closure than showing us Kendra’s no remorse face.

I will give this 80% wonderroanne rating. I haven’t written in a while and this documentary made me more excited to write all over again.