I'm firmly in the anti-media camp on this one. I think he was naive, busy and conveniently nowhere near the "girlfriend." However, once the whole thing got into the media (which was only partially Te'O's fault) it became one of the absolute biggest stories of the season, and many of Te'o's plaudits came as a result of this. Everyone likes to root for the "good guy." Then parts of the media basically tried to make it a good vs. evil story with JM2 as the foil. It was all media BS to drive viewership and clicks.

When I see the girlfriends name I hear it in Chris Fowler's voice. I think ESPN/College Gameday bear a lot of the blame for the hype. Te'o was along for the ride and didn't want to pull the brakes.

TXAGFAN said:

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Ryan the Temp said:

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Ragnar Danneskjoldd said:

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the gay thing was concocted by the same people who ran the dead girlfriend thing doing zero verification.

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As a certified gay, it all seemed very gay to me before people started saying it was gay. Maybe he isn't, but that was the view through my pink glasses.

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+1 - Whole situation felt like a coverup (beard) gone too far.

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There's no evidence that he's gay. (Not that there's anything wrong with it!)

Only feelings and intuitions. Such a gay way to form an opinion.

As always, don't try to blame conspiracy on things that could easily be explained by greed or stupidity.

Ragnar Danneskjoldd said:

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Really, what this doc is and what deadspin was trying to do, was show how the corporate media does 0 investigation before running with stories and really is not interested at all in if anything is true so long as it generates revenue. The doc is far more of an indictment on corporate media than it is on manti or the con artist.

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Why would anyone investigate who he says is his girlfriend? And if she was sick, as he said, wouldn't people be mad about the media prying into some sick girl's life? Trying to blame the media for that is really dumb.

It was always infuriating listening to the press fawn over his play as a highlight reel aired. And every tackle was him getting trucked. He'd get the stat, but was always on his back underneath the carrier.

Or he'd be the last to join a pile already going down but they'd act like it was heroics that got the stop.

wbt5845 said:

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Yeah, what bothered me the most about the sick girlfriend was how it was used as a prop to pimp his Heisman campaign. His PR machine was running full speed because his on the field performance was good, not great.

EDIT: remember how it was the old "oh he's such a great guy look at him standing by his dying girlfriend" vs "Manziel is a horrible drunk *******."

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As the late, great Sean Connery said. "Winners go home and eff the prom queen". Teo just imagined one.

Bob Loblaws Law Blog said:

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I think a lot of Texager's opinion/hatred of Te'o is driven by the Heisman race against Johnny, I know mine was at the time. I think if he hadn't been in the Heisman discussion (rightly or wrongly) a lot of people on this site wouldn't care nearly as strongly as they do/did.

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Yeah I think alot of people here harbor bad feelings for him because of that, when in reality I think he was just a young man that got caught up in a whirlwind and couldn't figure out how to get out of. Obviously he could've been more open and honest with everybody but I think at that point it had gotten too big and he didn't know how to handle it.

Ragnar Danneskjoldd said:

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BBRex said:

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Ragnar Danneskjoldd said:

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Really, what this doc is and what deadspin was trying to do, was show how the corporate media does 0 investigation before running with stories and really is not interested at all in if anything is true so long as it generates revenue. The doc is far more of an indictment on corporate media than it is on manti or the con artist.

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Why would anyone investigate who he says is his girlfriend? And if she was sick, as he said, wouldn't people be mad about the media prying into some sick girl's life? Trying to blame the media for that is really dumb.

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Why would the media do what they purport to be their job is what youre asking me?

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Ha! That's funny. You really think that EVERY fact that a reporter hears in an interview gets checked? I can't think of a more futile endeavor than trying to fact-check claims about who is an athlete's girlfriend.

There are different levels of news, and sort of different standards of reporting. ESPN's ex-jock sports crew really isn't a group of journalists, anyway. They're paid to offer opinions on sports and create some "features" to fill in the dead time before the game. If you work for a monthly magazine like Newsweek or The New Yorker, they have the time and money to do the in-depth fact-checking you're talking about. Newspapers will do that for stories they think are controversial or facts that are in doubt, but they don't have the time to fact-check the way a weekly or monthly publication does. TV news, depending on what show it is, runs the gamut from serious fact-checking for a show like 60 Minutes to man-on-the-street interviews of your local TV news.

In the Teo case, what he said was accepted at face value because: 1. the subject knows that once it goes live, he'll get found out and look like an idiot if he's lying. That's usually enough incentive to get people to tell the truth. 2. his own people were repeating the story. For a story like this, if his or the university's publicity team is promoting it, they've usually already vetted it.

Either way, once there was reason to doubt his story, the truth came out.

Okay, so I'm watching this now. I've always been a casual Notre Dame fan, and I never had any animosity towards Teo, but I remember at the time thinking it seemed likely to be a hoax he was involved in.

I think this is very sympathetic to Teo. He comes across as very sheltered and naive. I do feel bad about what all happened to him, and this show somehow makes his story seem believable. He'll never get back what all this cost him.

AliasMan02 said:

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Doubt it was a shakedown. Look no further than this board to see people who just love pretending to be people they're not and messing with people. I guarantee Barnes has done this sort of thing.

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Also look at all the people who love to fall for the lies those people put out there to mess with people. Like that hot FBI chick or whatever who had all kinds of inside government info but was really Barnes awhile back.

I hate to break this to you but the matrix is real and you are not. Y'all are all bots or barnes' personalities. Or personalities of a personality. For example the hedge bot alters itself every time it respawns, and it is never an improvement. But it always respawns, forever circling the flushing toilet bowl that is this board.

Just watched it.

I'm glad he talked to somebody while in San Diego. Great questions were asked by that person.

I agree that he got caught up in it all and didn't know how to handle it when he found out it was a lie.

I looked up Manti a bit after watching this. I had no idea he stuck around in the NFL for so long, he played from 2013-2021. I remember the knock on him before he was drafted was that he was undersized and his game wouldn't translate well to the NFL.

Looks like he was pretty much injured every single year, but he still had a decent career in the NFL.

Mort Rainey said:

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Charlie Conway said:

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Ragnar Danneskjoldd said:

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BBRex said:

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Ragnar Danneskjoldd said:

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Really, what this doc is and what deadspin was trying to do, was show how the corporate media does 0 investigation before running with stories and really is not interested at all in if anything is true so long as it generates revenue. The doc is far more of an indictment on corporate media than it is on manti or the con artist.

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Why would anyone investigate who he says is his girlfriend? And if she was sick, as he said, wouldn't people be mad about the media prying into some sick girl's life? Trying to blame the media for that is really dumb.

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Why would the media do its job is what youre asking me?

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The issue is the media, see ESPN, made it a huge ****ing story without doing any research at all.

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It was a huge ****ing story. This guy was a front runner for the heisman trophy and was using this story that he knew was a lie for his own gain. He may have been played at first but he picked up the lie and ran with it.

I'm sorry, but that's a story and a big one. Don't blame the media for his stupidity and dishonest

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The media ran with this story the entire season. They used it to prop Manti up and never let the story fade. Because of this, it was ABSOLUTELY their responsibility to ensure what they were reporting was correct. Of course, that's not what the media does today. They strive to be the first to break the story and worry about the facts later. Even the guy from deadspin admitted that they couldn't wait for all of the facts to be acquired because it was more important to be first.

Deadspin wasn't exactly a credible media outlet. This was the story that made them somewhat credible. Part of the problem with "the media" now is that anything can be lumped in. A tweet, a personal blog post, something posted on a random Facebook page, a website showing mostly embarrassing sports clips and a partisan political website are considered "the media" by people who are either ignorant or gullible.

The one part that made me call BS was when Teo said in the documentary that during that time cat fishing wasn't a thing. The popular documentary "Catfish" came out in 2010 and the tv show came out in November of 2012. I remember at the time that everyone was talking about catfish and how crazy it was.

Teo's online relationship was around 2010-2012. I have a hard time believing he had never heard of the term catfish during that time.

Mormon church was working their strong PR machine as part of the hype and looks like again in making him a feel good Saint of a man.

I'll take Dat for the win, instead - every time.

ea1060 said:

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The one part that made me call BS was when Teo said in the documentary that during that time cat fishing wasn't a thing. The popular documentary "Catfish" came out in 2010 and the tv show came out in November of 2012. I remember at the time that everyone was talking about catfish and how crazy it was.

Teo's online relationship was around 2010-210. I have a hard time believing he had never heard of the term catfish during that time.

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In the doc, he actually said "it was 2009. Catfishing wasn't a term yet." So I'll give him a little credit there

LMCane said:

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aggiederelict said:

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Never meeting this "hottie" is part of the guise. He gets to tell everyone he has a girlfriend without having to actually have a girlfriend. Plenty of gay men have families and kids. We all probably know some men who fit this bill. There is lot of societal pressure for strong men who come from a strong, masculine, and religious culture to play the part. Look at the black community and how many guys are on the "down low." I am just saying it is a real possibility based on what I have seen.

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well explain this then:not only is he married, a member of the Mormons, with a kid...but

he was texting WITH A GHEY DUDE that he believed was a hot woman for two years.

how would that have never come up if Te'o was actually ghey?!?

why would there have had to be a catfish involved then?

so he is ghey and makes up a story about a dead girlfriend so the entire world knows his story, all the while he is secretly LGB but rather than live life on the down low- he goes to the national media so that everyone checks into his romances?!?!

that makes sense to you?

or is he like 97% of the population and straight?

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If you spell gay "ghey", you come off like you're 15. Just fyi

Tobias Funke said:

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LMCane said:

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aggiederelict said:

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Never meeting this "hottie" is part of the guise. He gets to tell everyone he has a girlfriend without having to actually have a girlfriend. Plenty of gay men have families and kids. We all probably know some men who fit this bill. There is lot of societal pressure for strong men who come from a strong, masculine, and religious culture to play the part. Look at the black community and how many guys are on the "down low." I am just saying it is a real possibility based on what I have seen.

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well explain this then:not only is he married, a member of the Mormons, with a kid...but

he was texting WITH A GHEY DUDE that he believed was a hot woman for two years.

how would that have never come up if Te'o was actually ghey?!?

why would there have had to be a catfish involved then?

so he is ghey and makes up a story about a dead girlfriend so the entire world knows his story, all the while he is secretly LGB but rather than live life on the down low- he goes to the national media so that everyone checks into his romances?!?!

that makes sense to you?

or is he like 97% of the population and straight?

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If you spell gay "ghey", you come off like you're 15. Just fyi

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And I don't think Manti is "LGB".

What???

Ragnar Danneskjoldd said:

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Really, what this doc is and what deadspin was trying to do, was show how the corporate media does 0 investigation before running with stories and really is not interested at all in if anything is true so long as it generates revenue. The doc is far more of an indictment on corporate media than it is on manti or the con artist.

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Deadspin isn't exactly the place for journalistic integrity.