Hoax or multiple agendas?

[omni550]

Looks like Manti was catfished

The woman Manti Te’o thought was Lennay Kekua from photos has come forward and she’s not happy.
Diane O’Meara, a 23-year-old woman from Torrance, Calif., says she is the woman in the photos and that she did not give her consent to have them used as part of what appears to be a hoax.
“Somebody stole her identity,” a relative named Olga Volkov told The New York Post. “[O’Meara’s family] found out about it yesterday. They were shocked.”


According to Deadspin, the woman in the photo was a high school classmate of Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, the man who appears to have perpetrated the hoax from the beginning.

Rest of article here: Pictures of Manti Te



omni

 

[REWahoo]

Maybe the mods will look the other way on this one...

 

[freebird5825]

No matter what the outcome, this kind of publicity is a Madison Avenue ad jockey's wet dream.

I'm guessing he was so busy with his football practices and memorizing plays, plus attending classes, and being true to his faith (a positive comment) that he didn't have time to be the campus Romeo.

It is a very mean spirited trick.

 

[Koolau]

While everyone will concentrate on who was involved in starting/perpetuating this hoax, it seems to me the big story is the gullible media who jumped on with both feet. It's the typical "build someone up and eventually knock them down". It sells toilet paper and minipads - and costs them almost nothing to research (since they didn't). Now, they get to spin the story again to sell drain cleaner and mouth wash (don't get those confused, please.) As always, YMMV.

 

[ERD50]

While everyone will concentrate on who was involved in starting/perpetuating this hoax, it seems to me the big story is the gullible media who jumped on with both feet. It's the typical "build someone up and eventually knock them down". It sells toilet paper and minipads - and costs them almost nothing to research (since they didn't). Now, they get to spin the story again to sell drain cleaner and mouth wash (don't get those confused, please.) As always, YMMV.

Agree, but I also heard a slightly different twist on this, that I think may be more to the point. They may not have desired to "build someone up and eventually knock them down". Basically, it was a good story that they can sell, so they had no interest in looking for anything to contradict it. Go with the flow - it sells! Get the story in, and head for the bar/home!

I've had personal experience with this. I know someone who makes a big deal about a charitable project he is 'working' on. He's got a pretty good story, but has accomplished zero, wasted every dollar donated to him, and has zero chance of ever accomplishing anything meaningful on this project. Hasn't even bothered to do the paperwork to form a legitimate 501c3 charitable organization. Yet, from time to time, some big-name Chicago TV/newsprint reporters will feature him in some story. Do they do any fact-checking? Apparently not, or they would see there is nothing to his claims. But hey, they have a deadline, they need a story, he's got one - why ask those kinds of questions? That's extra work, and then they'd have to find another story. Give the people what they want - what's 'journalism' got to do with it?

-ERD50

 

[omni550]

Te'o speaks for the first time

This is totally the classic "Catfish" story. Young person "meets" someone attractive on facebook, develops a close emotional relationship with that person over a prortracted period of time without ever meeting in person, only to finally realize the person they developed this close emotional relationship with is not who they say they are.

"Te'o said the relationship with the fake girlfriend began on Facebook. He admitted to lying to his father about having met Kekua, prompting his father to tell reporters that the two had met. Several media stories indicated that he and Kekua had met. Te'o insisted they never did."

Report: Manti Te'o admits to 'tailored' accounts in girlfriend hoax but denies being part of scheme - Yahoo! Sports

omni

 

[Lazarus]

You don't have to be smart to play football.

 

[haha]

You don't have to be smart to play football.

Maybe not. But on street smarts, a group of football players are probably well ahead of other perhaps much more school smart groups.

You can't successfully play football without being pretty good at diagnosing what is going on, acting on it, and asserting and enforcing dominance.

Ha

 

[ERD50]

Maybe not. But on street smarts, a group of football players are probably well ahead of other perhaps much more school smart groups.

You can't successfully play football without being pretty good at diagnosing what is going on, acting on it, and asserting and enforcing dominance.

Ha

On the field yes, but does that translate to social/financial skills? Maybe on average, but there seem to be plenty of exceptions. This guy sure didn't read it correctly, unless he was part of the hoax from the start and it was all a sympathy play (which I doubt, though I now have read some things that say he kept up with the story after he knew it was false - but that's different).

-ERD50

 

[haha]

On the field yes, but does that translate to social/financial skills? Maybe on average, but there seem to be plenty of exceptions. This guy sure didn't read it correctly, unless he was part of the hoax from the start and it was all a sympathy play (which I doubt, though I now have read some things that say he kept up with the story after he knew it was false - but that's different).

-ERD50

Financial no, but social? I was a very marginal high school football player, but I learned a lot more about what to expect from others, and what they expected from me, from the older athletes on my team than from anyone else. Especially about girls. IMO, these people are not clouded by theory, which is the main problem for most of us.

Hey, how does this this square with the Love Story theme?

One of the most pressing questions over the last few days was why Te'o didn't visit the supposedly ailing Kekua in the hospital. Schaap posed that to Te'o, who said, "It never really crossed my mind. I don't know. I was in school."

All I can say to this is ya, shure, you betcha. Would Ryan have treated Ali this way?

Ha

 

[easysurfer]

I believe that Te'o wasn't involved in hatching the hoax. What started as a joke on him got out of hand. This guy is gullible to a fault. I'm not saying he was totally innocent, but the explanations of why he tailored the story is plausible.

ESPN Interview:

Manti Te'o of Notre Dame Fighting Irish denies being part of hoax about late girlfriend - ESPN


---
"In the end, Manti Te'o may have simply lived a particularly amazing version of a very old tale – a young kid that love turned into a damn fool."

Manti Te'o says he didn't know about girlfriend hoax, and what's not to believe? - Yahoo! Sports

In the end...this experience for him could be a blessing in disguise. Hopefully, he won't get taken when he get's a pro football player's contract and some "money manager" tells him to just trust him, sign on the dotted line, his money worries are over.

 

[Lsbcal]

Financial no, but social? I was a very marginal high school football player, but I learned a lot more about what to expect from others, and what they expected from me, from the older athletes on my team than from anyone else. Especially about girls.
...

I would really like to hear what you learned about girls.

 

[Dawg52]

Hey, how does this this square with the Love Story theme?

One of the most pressing questions over the last few days was why Te'o didn't visit the supposedly ailing Kekua in the hospital. Schaap posed that to Te'o, who said, "It never really crossed my mind. I don't know. I was in school."


All I can say to this is ya, shure, you betcha. Would Ryan have treated Ali this way?

Ha

It doesn't. The below clip not that funny, but the funeral reference is on the money too.

Piers Morgan Interviews Manti Te'o About His Fake Girlfriend On SNL - YouTube

 

[haha]

Latest on Manti's Love Story

Manti Te

"Einhorn is a man!"

Ha

 

[Lsbcal]

Maybe this could be blamed on a cheap cell phone? Perhaps the football player needs to go out and spring for a top of the line phone.

This is my current theory. Remember you heard it here first.

 

[easysurfer]

Anyone see the Katie Couric interiew with Manti?

The more I see, the more I believe in Manti. That he was this really really naive person that fell for an elaborate hoax.

There's interview even gets a bit creepy as during the interview three voice mails are played which sounds like a woman's voice. But now we learn is probably from that guy who played the hoax all along. At one point during the show, Manti talks about when he got the call saying the his "girlfriend" was still alive. He asks for her to send a photo of her holding up a sign and making a symbol with her hand as confirmation. That photo is shown and Manti thinks at that point..."she's still alive..." (He should have asked for her holding up a photo of a newspaper..to prove the date. Or in today's world, a picture of CNN news or something).