Chadfishing

2015Social experiment / online harassment tacticdead

Published March 31, 2026

Also known as: Chadfish · Chad Thundercock experiment

Chadfishing is a form of catfishing practiced within incel communities where men create fake dating app profiles using photos of conventionally attractive men, known as "Chads," to bait women into conversations. The practice traces back to BodyBuilding Forums posts in 2015 and hit its peak in 2019 when a dedicated subreddit was banned after accumulating thousands of subscribers in under a month1. What started as a supposed "experiment" to prove women are shallow quickly devolved into a tool for harassment, revenge porn sharing, and reinforcing incel ideology1.

manosphere memesincel origin memesonline dating memestrolling memesbodybuilding forum memes

Overview

Chadfishing works like standard catfishing with an ideological twist. Practitioners steal photos of muscular, square-jawed men and build fake Tinder profiles around them. Once they match with women, the chadfisher typically sends bizarre, offensive, or hostile messages to see how far the "Chad" persona can push things before getting rejected1. Screenshots of these conversations are then shared on forums and subreddits as supposed proof of incel theories about female sexuality and the unfair advantages of attractive men2.

The term combines "Chad," the incel archetype for an effortlessly attractive alpha male, with "catfishing," the practice of using someone else's photos to deceive people online3. Unlike standard catfishing, the goal isn't to form fake relationships. It's to generate screenshot "evidence" for black pill ideology, the belief that physical appearance alone determines romantic success1.

Origin & Background

Platform
BodyBuilding Forums (earliest posts), 4chan /r9k/ (early spread)
Creator
oogahboogah
Date
2015

The earliest documented chadfishing post appeared on January 9, 2015, when BodyBuilding Forums user oogahboogah created a thread titled "Going on Tinder as Chad Thundercock is beyond depressing"2. The post included screenshots of Tinder conversations conducted through a fake profile using photos of an attractive man. The poster's tone set the template for what followed: a mix of self-pity and resentment at how easily the fake profile attracted matches1.

Later that year, in October 2015, a 4chan /r9k/ user going by "Beta Chad" submitted screenshots of bizarre messages sent to women through a fake Tinder profile featuring an athletic man's photo2. The thread proved popular enough that Beta Chad posted a second batch of screenshots to /r9k/ by popular demand2.

A 2016 thread on BodyBuilding Forums pushed the concept further. On June 14, 2016, user MigosMiscer posted "Made a tinder as Chad. Results are unbelievable," writing that "Girls LITERALLY wait until they match with a Chad and only have sex with him"2. The poster also shared nudes allegedly received from women, without their consent1. Reactions split between users who found it entertaining and those who spiraled into depression over how easy dating appeared to be for attractive men1.

How It Spread

The practice simmered on bodybuilding and incel forums for several years before breaking into a wider phenomenon. On June 9, 2017, Urban Dictionary user k4yfour defined chadfishing as "catfishing but using pictures of chads," giving the practice its formal name3.

By late 2018, chadfishing had been embraced across incel communities as "the ultimate black pill," with angry men treating it as definitive proof that physical appearance overrides personality in dating1. The practice spread across sites like Incels.co and Looksmax.me, where users documented their chadfishing sessions with a mix of glee and despair1. One poster on a forum that glorified sexual violence shared links to threads about deliberately ghosting women on dates set up through Chad profiles1.

The biggest moment came on May 30, 2019, when the r/Chadfish subreddit launched2. It gained over 4,300 subscribers within 24 days. Less than a month after launch, Reddit banned the subreddit for violating community standards2. The ban was linked to a connected Discord channel where users shared private images of women they'd tricked, amounting to illegal revenge porn1. The Discord channel was also shut down. When the ban hit, a celebratory post in r/IncelTears titled "We did it guys! /r/Chadfish is banned!" pulled in more than 12,000 upvotes and 1,000 comments2.

Subsequent attempts to create replacement chadfishing subreddits were squashed as soon as they appeared1. The practice migrated back to dedicated incel forums like Incels.co and Looksmax.me, where it generated its own internal controversies. Looksmax.me, ostensibly a self-improvement forum, banned at least one prolific chadfisher for "being toxic"1.

How to Use This Meme

Chadfishing isn't a meme template in the traditional sense. It's a practice documented and shared through screenshots. The typical pattern follows these steps:

1

The chadfisher downloads photos of a conventionally attractive man, usually muscular with strong jawline features

2

They create a dating app profile (most commonly Tinder) using these stolen photos

3

The bio is often deliberately provocative, offensive, or absurd to test whether appearance alone overcomes red flags

4

After matching, the chadfisher sends bizarre or hostile messages

5

Screenshots of the resulting conversations are posted to forums as "evidence"

Cultural Impact

Mel Magazine published a detailed report on chadfishing the day after r/Chadfish was banned, documenting the history and psychology behind the practice1. The article identified the core contradiction: chadfishing was designed to prove that Chads have unlimited romantic power, but the actual results usually disproved that thesis. Women didn't actually respond well to abusive messages from attractive profiles, undermining the entire premise1.

As one Incels.co user bluntly put it, "Chadfishing is cucking yourself," pointing out that the practice only reinforced the chadfisher's obsession with a fictional romantic rival1. Another bragged about having "ruined womens lives by being horrible to them while pretending to be a gigachad," revealing the practice's true function as a harassment tool rather than any kind of legitimate experiment1.

The Reddit and Discord bans in 2019 marked a broader crackdown on incel communities sharing non-consensual intimate images. The chadfishing episode highlighted how quickly "social experiments" on dating apps could escalate into organized harassment and illegal content distribution1.

Fun Facts

The name "Chad Thundercock" from the original 2015 post became one of the most common fake profile names used in early chadfishing attempts2.

The term was already on Urban Dictionary two years before the dedicated subreddit launched3.

Even within incel communities, chadfishing was divisive. Some called it "lifefuel" (validating), while others considered it "suicidefuel" (depressing proof they'd never be attractive enough)1.

Multiple chadfishers reported that women stopped responding the moment a real meetup was proposed, undermining their own argument that looks alone guaranteed hookups1.

Frequently Asked Questions