Ink Tea Stone Leaf

Some time ago, a friend of mine introduced me to a delightful website that I have visited nearly every day since. It appeals to the part of me that loves general knowledge trivia, which is most of me; it also has a funny name that will probably be misunderstood, given the other ways it is used in online culture. So let’s get that out of the way: Catfishing has nothing to do with pretending to be somebody else on the internet. It is about guessing the correct Wikipedia article (“fishing” for it, per the game’s FAQ) from a list of categories (that’s the “cat” part) to which that article belongs.

Every day, ten Wiki articles are selected, and the website keeps track of your stats from day to day in an ongoing competition. You get one guess for each article, and one point for every correct guess (a cat, as opposed to a fish). If you have no idea, you can proceed without a guess, which is the same as a wrong answer. However, if you do guess, and your guess is close un œuf (that’s an egg pun, friends) in your own estimation, you are permitted to grant yourself one half point. Catfishing, far from the other usage of that term, runs on the honor system.

Part of the reason I like Catfishing is that I’m pretty good at this game: my average score over 315 games is 6/10, though I have guessed all ten correctly on two occasions. Today (January 15th, 2026) I managed to reach 7, while the standings indicate that the average score among all players (so far) is 3.6. Make no mistake, there are good days and bad days for Catfishing, though I usually feel pretty good about myself if I can just stay on the right side of the curve.

In addition to playing every day, I have been working backward through the archive in fits and starts. I thought it might be fun to select an unplayed game and show the world my thought process as I seek a third glorious ten. At the very least, it will be fun for me, so here we go!

The game I have selected is number 256, from March 6th, 2025. So, if you’re a Catfisher yourself and you haven’t done that one, I guess this is where I’m going to say

!@#$%^&*SPOILER*&^%$#@!

and just sort of proceed from there. Maybe go play this one first before reading the rest of this article. Remember, honor system.

Number 1

Categories: Facial features / Human head and neck / Olfactory system / Respiratory system

Sometimes these are not terribly difficult at all. Olfactory refers to the sense of smell, while Respiratory refers to breathing. This is Nose, as plain as the one on my face.

Result: Correct

That’s one kitty cat in my corner right off the bat.

Number 2

Categories: 1960s in Latin music / Brazilian styles of music / Culture of Brazil / Samba music genres

Going by the time frame and the location, two styles of music jump into mind immediately: bossa nova, and tropicalia. On the whole, I am leaning toward the former, which is more closely related to samba.

Result: Correct

If you are unfamiliar with bossa nova music and its relaxed, jazzy guitar stylings, a good introduction is the album Getz/Gilberto, featuring the song “The Girl from Ipanema,” as sung by Astrud Gilberto. One of the greatest songs of all time, and by that I mean I would not only put it on a list, but on every list.

Number 3

Categories: 19th century in the United Kingdom / Communism in England / Communism in the United Kingdom / Communism in Wales / History of liberalism / History of social movements / Labour movement / Left-wing politics in the United Kingdom / Liberalism in the United Kingdom / Marxism / Protests in the United Kingdom / Radical parties / Radicalism (historical) / Republicanism in the United Kingdom / Revolutionary Syndicalism / Social history of the United Kingdom / Syndicalism / Working Class in the United Kingdom

This is one of those articles that is included in order to make me, a history major, look like a fool for not remembering what it is. We are looking for a group of people from the UK in the 19th century with leftist politics who are associated with a significant protest event. I can think of a few such groups/events from the USA and continental Europe (the Haymarket riots, the Paris Commune), but none from the UK are coming to mind. My friends, I have drawn a blank, and I submit no answer.

Result: Incorrect (Chartism)

I have read about the Chartists, I swear. But having read too little to recall their name on the spot, my ignorance has cost me a shot at that perfect ten.

Number 4

Categories: 16th century Anglicans / 16th century English women / 16th century Roman Catholics / 1520s births / 1542 deaths / Burials at the Church of St. Peter ad Vincula / Child sexual abuse in England / Converts to Anglicanism from Roman Catholicism / Culpeper family / English Anglicans / English Roman Catholics / Executed English royalty / Executed English women / Executed people from London / Executions at the Tower of London / Household of Anne of Cleves / Ladies of the Privy Chamber / People convicted under a bill of attainder / People executed by Tudor England by decapitation / People executed under Henry VIII / People executed under the Tudors for treason against England / People from the London Borough of Lambeth / Prisoners in the Tower of London / Wives of Henry VIII.

Well, Henry VIII famously had six wives. As I recall, only two of them were decapitated, while the others were merely divorced. The only one whom I can definitely recall as being executed was Anne Boleyn. The woman in question died around twenty two years of age, and Anne Boleyn had three children with the king before he killed her. So if this was her, their relationship would have probably begun quite early, which would explain the category “child sexual abuse in England.” So is it Anne Boleyn? I hope so.

Result: Incorrect (Catherine Howard)

Nope, it was the other one. Apparently, she was one of Anne Boleyn’s first cousins. Unpleasant to contemplate.

Number 5

Categories: 1967 establishments in New York (state) / Arena rock musical groups / Columbia Records artists / Frontiers Records artists / Hard rock musical groups from New York (state) / Heavy metal musical groups from New York (state) / Musical groups disestablished in 1986 / Musical groups established in 1967 / Musical groups from Long Island / Musical groups reestablished in 1987 / Musical quintets from New York (state) / Occult rock musical groups / psychedelic rock music groups from New York (state)

So we have a five person band that could be described as arena rock, hard rock, heavy metal, psychedelic rock, and “occult?” They’re from Long Island, so that rules out Black Sabbath. I’m thinking Blue Öyster Cult.

Result: Correct

I’ve got a fever, and the only prescription is…

Number 6

Categories: 108th United States Congress / 2000s fads and trends / 2003 neologisms / American nationalism / American political neologisms / Anti-French sentiment in the United States / Euphemisms / Fast food / Food politics / France-United States relations / Iraq War terminology / Linguistic controversies / Political terminology / Propaganda in the Iraq War / Propaganda in the United States

Things may be uniquely terrible in the USA right now, but I don’t want any young people to get the idea that I can remember a time when our politics were not deeply stupid. This is obviously about “Freedom Fries,” the new name that Republicans came up with for french fries in order to performatively signal their disdain for the French and for France’s refusal to support George W. Bush’s war in Iraq.

Result: Correct

Did you know that American congressmen love nothing more than coming up with incredibly stupid names for things in order to flatter themselves and their allies, while disparaging their opponents? They even love it more than hearing the sound of their own voices as they pretend to answer questions.

Number 7

Categories: 1662 establishments in England / Comedy theatre characters / Culture of England / Drama / English humour / Fictional characters introduced in 1662 / Fictional duos / Fictional married couples / Pulcinella / Puppetry in the United Kingdom / Puppets / Traditions

You might think that, English history questions having kicked my ass thus far today, I would be sweating right now. But my breadth of knowledge is as weird as it is great, and I know Punch and Judy when I see them.

Result: Correct

Go see a saucy puppet show.

Number 8

Categories: Blade Runner / Fiction about death / Film scenes / Monologues / Works about the meaning of life

Uf. It has been a very long time since I have seen any part of Blade Runner. I’m pretty sure the scene/monologue in question has something to do with rain. Drops of rain? Am I conflating that with something else? Only one way to find out. Well, two, but I don’t have time to watch Blade Runner right now.

Result: Incorrect (Tears in rain monologue)

You know what? I think this is the very definition of close un œuf. I actually almost put “tears in the rain,” but I thought I might have been conflating that with the Band song “Tears of Rage.” Half point for me.

Number 9

Categories: 20th century American businesspeople / 20th century American writers / 21st century American businesspeople / 21st century American non-fiction writers / 1924 births / 2019 deaths / American autobiographers / American chief executives in the automobile industry / American philanthropists / American Roman Catholics / American writers of Italian descent / Businesspeople from Allentown, Pennsylvania / Chrysler executives / Corporate executives in the automobile industry / Deaths from Parkinson’s disease in California / Ford executives / Ford Mustang / Lehigh University alumni / Male actors from Allentown, Pennsylvania / Pennsylvania Republicans / People from Bel Air, Los Angeles / Princeton University alumni / William Allen High School alumni / Writers from Allentown, Pennsylvania

I was all set to give up on this one until I spotted the category “Male actors from Allentown, Pennsylvania.” For better or worse, as my brain cross-referenced corporate titans with Hollywood-adjacent folks, the name “Armand Hammer” popped up. Am I anywhere close to correct? I don’t have a better guess!

Result: Incorrect (Lee Iacocca)

Lawl, it was not Armand Hammer. Remember when his great-grandson had that whole thing about eating people? That was wild.

Number 10

Categories: 19th century Hindus / 19th century Indian mathematicians / 20th century Indian mathematicians / 1887 births / 1920 deaths / Fellows of the Royal Society / Fellows of the Royal Society of Arts / Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge / Indian Combinatorialists / Indian Hindus / Indian number theorists / Infectious disease deaths in India / Mathematicians from British India / Mental calculators / Number theorists / People from Erode district / People from the Kingdom of Mysore / Pi-related people / Scientists from Tamil Nadu / University of Madras alumni

I have certainly read about this gentleman, and he is extremely rad. I cannot for the life of me remember his name. Let’s find out what it is.

Result: Incorrect (Srinivasa Ramanujan)

Ramanujan had no formal training in mathematics before he started making groundbreaking contributions to the field, which objectively makes him one of the most remarkable people in modern history. I should learn his name.

Final Results

A score of 5.5/10 may not sound terribly impressive, but that may be relative.

According to the stats on the results page, about 4,700 people have attempted that particular day’s challenge (Catfishing seems to have grown in popularity in the last year—today’s game has had 12k players so far). Those 4,700 people have an average score of 2.9/10, while only 351 of them logged a better score than mine. This puts me in the top 8%, and therefore I will do a dance of victory.

I also get a lot of enjoyment out of examining the incorrect guesses offered by other players. Some of this is just me being insufferable, but it is genuinely interesting to see where people’s minds go when confronted with questions they don’t know the answer to. Let’s take a look at the nitty gritty post-mortem.

Predictably, 87% of guessers got Nose correct, the highest percentage of the game. The others offered various other organs and orifices of the human head, either because they thought it couldn’t be as simple as Nose, or because they forgot what a Nose was.

Only 35% correctly guessed Bossa Nova, while others offered various other musical styles from Latin America or Spain. Which is what you would expect, I suppose.

A mere 4% correctly guessed Chartism, which makes me feel less bad. Not great though, because by all rights I should be in that particular 4%. The top guess seems to have been variations on the Labour Party, but it looks like most people skipped this one.

Only 15% of people got credit for Catherine Howard, including a few who gave themselves the half point for merely putting “Catherine.” They shouldn’t have, because Henry VIII had three wives named Catherine (plus two Annes, and a Jane), and he only killed one of them. More people guessed Anne Boleyn, like me, because we are basic.

8% of the people guessed Blue Öyster Cult correctly, and the other 92% clearly need more cowbell. Other guesses include Kiss, Black Sabbath, Metallica, Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, ACDC, Phish, and Deep Purple. Most of those bands are not American, and half of the ones that are hail from California, so our schools must not be teaching Rock and Roll geography.

A respectable 54% got Freedom Fries correct, though a disconcerting number of people seem to have put variations on French Fries instead. The whole point was that they weren’t French anymore, my dudes.

Some 33% identified Punch and Judy, which makes me smile. Shout out to the 1% of folks who apparently believe Romeo and Juliet was a puppet show, and the other 1% who thought that the Muppets might have been created in the 17th century.

31% got credit for the Tears in rain monologue, including a healthy number of people who gave themselves a half point, as I did. Unfortunately, our variant answers were all apparently so idiosyncratic that it won’t show me what they were.

10% got Lee Iacocca, and I’ll bet they know who the current CEO of the Ford Motor Company is, too. A similar number guessed Henry Ford himself, and I can only say we should be thankful that that man did not live to see the 21st century (though it would have been impressive). I might have been the only person to guess Armand Hammer.

Fully 26% got Srinivasa Ramanujan, which is impressive. A small number of people guessed variations on Gandhi, presumably because that is the only name from British India they know (shame). 1% put Bose, which is a much more respectable guess. Another 1% put Pi, which might actually be a worse answer than Gandhi.

Last Thoughts

Trivia games are fun for two reasons: the thrill associated with knowing an answer, and the opportunity to learn something about a corner of the world you had not previously paid much attention to, or even known anything about at all. One of my great regrets is how few opportunities I have to play difficult trivia games against other people, but Catfishing scratches that itch and keeps me coming back for more, even after those days where I get absolutely wrecked by categories I know nothing about. It’s a pleasure to learn about the world, regardless of what I already knew.