Manti Te'o Poked by Catfish, Cries Real Tears

By Chad Anthony on January 17, 2013

Don’t you hate when your fake boyfriend or girlfriend dies?  I sure as hell do.  You’re just going about your day content and full of unabashed joy…then BOOM!  You receive a text/Facebook message/Twitter post with the inevitable shot to the gut.  He or she croaked.  Now, you have a fake wake, fake funeral, and fake arrangements to organize and bill.  Flower bouquets overwhelm your room, extending fake condolences.  Don’t even get me started on all the fake emotions!  I won’t be able to hold back all those fake tears. I talk of this in light of recent events regarding Notre Dame star linebacker and Heisman Trophy runner-up, Manti Te’o.  This scandal comes as a shock to everyone who cares about nonsensical idiotic information.  How Manti Te’o is dealing with this, no one truly knows, especially after his, and the entire Notre Dame football team’s, sterling performance in the BCS Bowl.

Manti Te’o fell victim to a social media frenzy, called a “catfish.”  The notion behind this relatively new hoax is misrepresenting an individual that is involved in a committed virtual partnership.  One side of the relationship, in this instance Manti Te’o, believed his girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, to be an actual person with a real case of leukemia.  Te’o then found out that Kekua passed from her “leukemia.”  Turns out, she is alive and kicking.  So active, in fact, that she reported to never have met Manti Te’o and her identity was used without her permission.  See, world?  Celebrities are like us normal not-famous people!

The scenario comes at a very special time, with MTV’s new show “Catfish” gaining traction.  In the soon-to-be-new-bank-buster ”Catfish”, host Yaniv ‘Nev’ Schulman takes an online relationship and organizes the two individuals to meet in the physical world.  Sometimes, the meet-and-greet turns out well; other times, the person on the other side of the screen happens to be years older and of the opposing gender.  I still cannot grapple with the fact that individuals participate in intimate, online-only relationships.  It’s similar to proclaiming an infatuation with a specific food, without having tasted said food.  You cannot fully be into Pad Thai until eating a steaming bowl of it.  I love Pad Thai.  I’ve met and eaten it’s ingredients; they’re delicious!

As for Mr. Te’o, I do not feel empathy for him.  He played for the Fighting Irish, and had an undefeated regular season, being the star linebacker none-the-less.  He was the runner-up for the Heisman.  His future promises a big, fat, real multi-million dollar signing bonus for playing in the NFL.  Te’o is a decently smart individual.  He studied at the University of Notre Dame for God-sake; however, we as a public should have known something like this would happen.  Te’o is Mormon after all.  Mormons believe Jesus visited the America’s and that the Garden of Eden is located somewhere in Missouri.  Te’o himself stated, “faith is believing in something you most likely can’t see.”  In a couple months, he’ll see his bank statement and stop his whining.  Real money makes dealing with a fake girlfriend so much easier.

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