AITA for catfishing my underaged sister on Tinder and humiliating her in order to teach her a lesson?

A Reddit user (21F) recently discovered her underaged sister (17F) was using Tinder and decided to test her intentions by catfishing her. She created a fake Tinder profile using a friend’s pictures, arranged a fake date with her sister, and then exposed her to their parents.

The situation escalated when they went to the restaurant and publicly humiliated her in front of others. While some friends think it was a fitting lesson, others feel it was cruel and too far. The user is now questioning if their actions were justified.

‘ AITA for catfishing my underaged sister on Tinder and humiliating her in order to teach her a lesson?’

Last week, I was using my sister Ashley’s phone because mine was dead and I needed to call a friend to confirm plans. Dialing my friend’s number, I saw a tinder notification of some dude messaging her. Immediately, I asked why she’s on tinder (she’s 17) and she grabbed her phone back and said “none of your business”.

I decided that I wanted to have a little fun with this. I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt (maybe she’s just swiping for fun?) so I didn’t want to go straight to ratting her to our parents. To test if she was just using for fun, I decided I was going to make a tinder profile (of someone else) and message her and see if she responds.

I asked a good friend from back in college (who happens to be a male model) Kevin if he’d mind if I used his pictures and explained the situation. He thought it would be hilarious and told me to go for it. I created the account, set my age to 22, set my swipe radius to a mile, and quickly found my sister’s account.

Her age was set to 19 (lie, she’s still in **high school**) so I was definitely more suspicious of her now. I superliked and less than an hour later, she matched AND messaged me. I decided to set up a date to a fancy restaurant downtown for Sunday afternoon and told her we could “head to my place afterwards”.

She was completely receptive and said she’d meet me there. She told our parents she was hanging out with one of her track friends and spending the night at her place.
After she left, I told our parents EVERYTHING and showed them all of the messages. They were pissed, and I suggested we all go to the restaurant.

My dad and I just went instead and saw her sitting at a table alone all dolled up waiting for “Jim”. My dad went up to her and said “Jim’s not coming” and she screamed and asked what we were doing there. I told her that there was no Jim and that it was f**king stupid of her to be trying to meet grown men on tinder at her age.

My dad harped on to that and lectured her on lying and meeting strange men on the Internet, and being so willing to go back to a *stranger’s* place. We were a bit loud so people were starting to look at us and my sister eventually bursted into tears and ran out.

I told my friends in a groupchat the situation and they all agreed it was hysterical, except 2 of my female friends who said I was a “f**king d**k” and “cruel” to her. My other friends defended me and said she needed to be taught a lesson. Wondering who’s right and if I went too far?

Here’s the feedback from the Reddit community:

hitchinpost −  YTA – You played a cruel ass trick on your sister because it would be “f**king hilarious”. I would have had difficulty, but ultimately probably came down on your side of you’d just told your parents when you first saw it. But you devised an elaborate trap first? No, a**hole move.

Surelock01 −  ESH. The execution was a bit over the top, but the underlying lesson was an important one – she ignored the age requirement and was willing to go back to a stranger’s place. But what stopped you guys from telling her to come home and then giving her a lecture?

Lalabeth93 −  ESH. What she’s doing is extremely dangerous, for obvious reasons. Unfortunately what you did is more than likely just going to push her further away. She will probably just try harder to hide things. Something else is likely going on in her life that’s encouraging her to seek attention from older men.

Invading her privacy, lying to her, and humiliating her is going to make her less likely to open up to family about her life and make it harder for you and your parents to support her.At Seventeen is unlikely she’s really going to learn anything from embarrassment or punishments from parents.

She’s either going to have to learn things the hard way, or she’s going to have to learn them by maturing. Legal age of majority or not, she’s viewing herself as an adult able to make her own decisions, so any interference from family will be unwelcome and resented.

And considering that she will be turning 18 soon, there will be very little your family can do to keep her from dangerous situations if she wants to put herself in them.. Edit: spelling. Another edit: Apparently what I thought were obvious reasons are not that obvious to others here. What makes this dangerous is not her age.

Doesn’t matter if she’s 17,18, or 40, what makes this dangerous is the deception. She’s going on a date with a man that she does not know and has told no one where she is going or who she will be with except possibly a friend who is helping her lie.

Going out with someone you have never met before, even if it does in a public place, without telling somebody (besides someone who has an interest in keeping their own mouth shut) where you are going and when to expect you to return is what I consider dangerous.

connorcamacho −  YTA big f**king time. There is a difference between wanting to keep your sister safe and wanting to embarrass her. You could have had a conversation one-on-one to talk about why using tinder maybe isn’t the best thing at that time for her, both for her own safety and for the legal aged men who use it.

You could have mentioned it to your parents, although that would be a s**tty thing to do imo. Instead, you trapped her, embarrassed her publicly, and also got her hopes up for a date with some male model. Think about the boundaries you crossed, man. She said s**t to this “guy” that I’m sure was flirty.

Think of how embarrassed you would feel if text messages you sent to SO’s of your past were actually forwarded to your parents. Imagine if the same s**t happened to you. So cool. You taught her a lesson. Even if she’s not an “adult”, she’s not a child either and she will remember this.

You have probably irreversibly damaged or even ruined your relationship with your sister, and have likely done the same with the relationship between your sister and your parents. And for you to be her older bro, sounds like you are super f**king immature. Comes to show that being of legal age does not mean being a mature adult.. I’m actually pissed

GoauldofWar −  Yeah YTA. You should have gone straight to your parents and let them deal with it but instead, you chose the nuclear option.

WebbieVanderquack −  catfishing…underaged sister…humiliating…teach her a lesson…told my friends. Yes, YTA. You should have simply told your parents about your concerns at the outset.

soulswimming −  YTA clearly. You don’t need to humilliate someone in order to let them know what they’re doing is wrong. You didn’t even try to talk to her about it, but decided instead to have fun at her expense. It seems like you were way more interested in ridiculing her and appearing in front of your parents like “the good kid” than actually caring for her safety.

[Reddit User] −  YTA if this is true. How you thought this would be helpful for your sister in ANY way is beyond me. Also you weren’t doing this “to teach her a lesson,” you were doing this because you wanted to have fun at her expense.

queenofthera −  YTA Completely. If you were actually concerned about her, you would have taken the profile to your parents without catfishing her. You did this solely to embarrass and shame her (as evidenced by the fact your friends ‘agreed it was hysterical’). You need to look at yourself and your motivations here. You were cruel and spiteful.

namjoonsmono −  YTA (a Mega one at that) So let me get this straight. Your sister made a tinder profile and you found out and then you decided to go 30 steps further than what’s appropriate and humiliate her? Yeah good luck dealing with her now. She’s not going to trust you and will resent you for this.

And if you were truly trying to teach her a lesson you would have sat her down and told her to wait a year or less when she turned 18. This is so incredibly sickening to read for me. Your friends are right, you were cruel to her and made her into a joke.

It’s even more horrible because you mask this as “helping her” when in reality you are humiliating her. I mean honestly how could you do this to her? It’s so awful to read it’s not even funny. Christ, it’s sick.