A whodunnit hinges on its mystery. So what happens when you take the ‘who’ out of the equation? Netflix has adapted a podcast and a Vice news video into a documentary, Sweet Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare, as if the viewer doesn’t know this detail, like it’s not there in the title at all. Some inevitable questions follow. What new perspective can this documentary possibly uncover? What justifies its existence in an already saturated true-crime landscape?

Sweet Bobby recounts the story of Kirat Assi, a former radio presenter and current marketing executive, and her decade-long catfishing ordeal at the hands of Simran Bhogal, her cousin. The documentary opens with Assi on a sofa, like she’s at the therapist’s, as she tells the viewer about how she met ‘Bobby’. It started with a Facebook friend request that Assi received from someone posing as ‘Bobby Jandu’.

Assi, living within a close-knit Sikh community in London, had no reason to distrust Bobby initially. He seemed real enough. They shared mutual friends. His supposed brother was dating her cousin. The two even nearly met at a club. Eventually, over a decade, Assi and Bobby’s online friendship evolved into a virtual romance and engagement, with Bobby fabricating elaborate excuses to avoid meeting in person. When Bobby wasn’t getting shot, he was having a stroke, and he even ended up in witness protection at some point, consuming most of Assi’s 30s with his casuistry. They never physically spoke until Assi, armed with an address provided by a private investigator, confronted the real Bobby. “Who are you?” the real Bobby asked. The charade was up — Simran had been Bobby all along.

A lack of a truly compelling narrative arc beyond the already-known facts

Sweet Bobby makes no attempt to hide the premise of its story, perhaps because it can’t. The story is already out there. Its task, then, should be to offer a fresh angle, a macroscale understanding of the events. Instead, it resorts to stylistic flourishes, prioritising visual aesthetics, sound design and slick editing over substance. The high-production value hides a fundamental flaw — a lack of a truly compelling narrative arc beyond the already-known facts.

This misstep stems from a cultural obsession with the how of catfishing — the web of lies and manipulation — rather than the why. This shouldn’t be surprising. There’s a certain voyeuristic appeal in watching someone be fooled, a delicious desperation that viewers expect from these staged documentaries. Assi plays her part well, recounting the story with disconcerting clarity, as if she’s detached from the emotional turmoil. “And on Valentine’s Day, Bobby sends me the first romantic message,” she narrates, while the screen shows a woman, presumably representing Assi, lying on her bed, phone in hand — the image of expectant longing.

The term ‘catfish’ often conjures images of balding men pretending to have a full head of hair or, more insidiously, unattractive women masking their appearance with make-up and filters. Being catfished is undoubtedly a violation, but unless there’s significant financial loss, as in the case of The Tinder Swindler, public sympathy usually wanes. The laboured question that looms is this: How could someone be so naive?

Sweet Bobby acknowledges this sentiment but fails to unpack the reasons behind such vulnerability in the age of social media. Exploring this aspect would require nuance and sensitivity, unknotting the paradoxes of online identity, the blurring lines between real and virtual, and the inherent trust we place in digital connections. Instead, the documentary presents Assi’s naivety as a cautionary tale, a simplistic and, ultimately, unsatisfying approach.

Assi describes catfishing as “entertainment for onlookers”, expressing her desire to “help break the stigma” and prevent victim-shaming. She concludes with the predictable call for internet regulation, a common refrain in documentaries about the dangers of online interaction. Sweet Bobby doesn’t throw the dart on the bullseye. Rather, it ricochets through rehashed events, purposely embracing the very stereotypes it seeks to dismantle. Assi’s credulity takes centre stage, inviting judgement rather than empathy. The line between acknowledging gullibility and victim-shaming becomes increasingly blurred.

Despite being long-form, Sweet Bobby over-relies on the very things we associate with short-form content

Sweet Bobby grows stale as you watch it. The focus shifts from the crime itself to predictable elements — screen grabs of text messages, Assi’s emotional outbursts, her forlorn voice notes to Bobby. We see her questioning the interviewer about the “personal nature” of questions regarding her intimacy with Bobby, even after laying bare the most intimate details of her life.

As part of the bigger picture, Sweet Bobby inadvertently offers a reckoning about the current state of streaming — a black hole of content designed to occupy viewers without offering anything new, leaving them deadened by constant consumption. The problem is the assumption that Netflix and social media are one and the same, leading to a conflation of how audiences engage with short-form and long-form content.

Viewers typically seek in-depth learning, sustained engagement and an extended viewing experience from long-form content. Sweet Bobby, despite being long-form (1 hour and 22 minutes), over-relies on the very things we associate with short-form content, particularly its focus on immediate audience preferences. Just as social media algorithms create feedback loops, constantly reinforcing existing beliefs and preferences, streaming platforms seem to believe this model will work for long-form production. It does not. Long-form requires complexity, development and a commitment to sustained exploration that algorithmic feedback loops actively discourage.

Sweet Bobby acknowledges that a multi-platform strategy emerges as the most effective approach for a story to go viral. But its pursuit of viral success lets the story slip. The documentary’s chronological structure, coupled with Assi’s grounded narration, leaves it wanting. She’s a bad character, unwilling to doubt herself, hesitate, or self-reflect without a justification chaperoning her every decision. Adaptations operate on the assumption that the premise of a story is so good that we can always tell it better, bigger, bolder. Well, not if the telling is all the same.