September 18, 2025
Providence College's Student-Run Newspaper Since 1935
by Sydney King ’26 on September 18, 2025
On Aug. 29, Netflix released a new documentary that was guaranteed to get buzz because of its sheer evil. Unknown Number: The High School Catfish centers around teenager Lauryn and her ex-high school boyfriend Owen, and how their lives were forever changed due to the digital harassment and psychological torture inflicted on them by an unknown number in a group chat over the course of 20 months. Since the documentary has been out long enough, I feel that it is appropriate to include spoilers: the culprit of these disturbing and nightmarish texts was Kendra, Lauryn’s mother. And at the end of the one hour and 30 minutes, I felt like what I was watching was less journalistic and more like a Lifetime Original movie.
I have two main issues with the documentary: the first being its editing, and the second its incorporation of Kendra. They chose to interview Lauryn twice, once around the time her mother went to jail, and the other was more recent to the film being made. The problem arises here because the audience is left completely in the dark about the different interviews and their timelines, making Lauryn’s reaction to the reveal of her mother’s identity seem questionable. Lauryn’s initial reaction to finding out that her mother has been tormenting her for almost two years unsettled a lot of viewers. Lauryn seemed stunned by the information, not speaking and showing no discernible emotion. Shortly after this, her mother embraced her, Lauryn allowing it, but her blank expression remained the same.
I am not surprised at all by Lauryn’s reaction. How is a daughter supposed to act when her mother has been anonymously bullying her, sexualizing her ex-boyfriend, and specifically targeting her deepest insecurities incessantly over two years? She was shocked. But this reaction, combined with comments made in her interviews, put many audience members off from Lauryn. In the first chronological set of interviews, Lauryn expresses a deep desire to see her mother again, and excitedly keeps communication with her through her prison stay, making it seem like the abuse had no effect on her. Meanwhile, in her more recent interview, Lauryn seems much more skeptical of her mother’s behavior and hesitant about continuing their relationship in the same close fashion as it was before. She has not seen her mother in over a year, and does not yet know when she will be ready to talk to her again. But these interviews are spliced together so that Lauryn’s feelings are not being accurately portrayed, and in my opinion, set her up to receive more public backlash.
The documentary’s worst crime is the inclusion of Kendra and how exactly she influences the plot. In the first half of the film, Kendra is being interviewed as everyone else is, describing her feelings and actions when the texts started despite her having already served her sentence for committing this crime. Once she is revealed as the villain, the last half of the documentary consists of her lying—about crimes she has already pleaded guilty to, mind you—and defending her actions. What Kendra did was inexcusable. The way Netflix portrayed a criminal as if her actions were justifiable and explainable was very disturbing to see. For a better understanding of this case, I would recommend reading the article The Cut wrote about it, as it goes further in-depth on the abusive and unwell mother Kendra was.
