Did Manti Teo know, how much and why? Poll

Did Manti Teo know, how much and why? Poll

  • Yes, to propel his career

    Votes: 25 32.9%

  • Yes, to cover for being gay

    Votes: 30 39.5%

  • Yes, thoughts be funny

    Votes: 5 6.6%

  • Not initially, but he figured it out prior to the deadspin article

    Votes: 11 14.5%

  • No, he's that stupid

    Votes: 5 6.6%
  • Total voters
    76
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kellyleeks

kellyleeks

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Did Manti Teo know, how much and why? Poll
 




He had to know. As someone who recently had a loved one die, I wonder, did Te'o do the things that people do when 'the love of their life' dies? Did he wonder why he wasn't able to do these things?

Did he try to call her family? Did he try to attend the service? Did he wonder why a beautiful young woman dies and there IS no service? Did he send a card? Did he wonder why he couldn't send a card? Did he wonder why he couldn't get a copy of her obituary, or view it online? Etc., etc., etc...

These are the things you do.
 


He may have thought being only the "on-line" boyfriend it wouldn't be right to send a card to her family.
 

At first I thought the 'gay' angle was just sordid speculation, but if you think about it, it makes the most sense.

I don't buy a scenario that he did it to help his career. There would be WAY easier ways. Just make up a disease you overcame. Health privacy, no one can really challenge you. Instead he decides months in advance of the season to make up a fake girlfriend that he will have to maintain a 'relationship' with and then kill her off at an opportune time? Nope. Not buying it. This would be a strategic decision that he thought about, and if he actually thought about it, he would come up with a much simpler way to get attention, with way less of a trail.

On the other hand, making up a fake girlfriend to take the heat off is probably a strategy that has been used by countless young, scared, gay men throughout the eons. "I met her at summer camp. She lives in another town. I can't cheat on her." etc.. It's the kind of decision that's prolly made without much thought to the consequences, and when it gets to be a bit cumbersome, hey, kill her off.
 

SJUgopher said:
He knew well before the deadspin article. Allegedly, he found out at the ESPN's awards Dec 8 when she called him.
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Maybe she was calling to tell him that she was pregnant. I'm sure he would've believed it.
 

kellyleeks said:
Maybe she was calling to tell him that she was pregnant. I'm sure he would've believed it.
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So, as our resident expert on internet death hoaxes, how doable do you think it would have been to keep a mark on the line for over a year?
 



harrys ghost said:
So, as our resident expert on internet death hoaxes, how doable do you think it would have been to keep a mark on the line for over a year?
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When Tipsy, Lloyd and I came up with the idea we thought it wouldn't last 5 minutes, but it lasted a few days. People emailed and called me and the wife, did Internet searches on funeral homes in Boston, etc. however, with Teo it took an anonymous tip to deadspin to make the national news media and major networks to verify a single fact.

Where's the problem?
 


Have a little respect please, people. An imaginary young woman is dead here.
 

kellyleeks said:
When Tipsy, Lloyd and I came up with the idea we thought it wouldn't last 5 minutes, but it lasted a few days. People emailed and called me and the wife, did Internet searches on funeral homes in Boston, etc. however, with Teo it took an anonymous tip to deadspin to make the national news media and major networks to verify a single fact.

Where's the problem?
Click to expand...

We learned a lot from that experience. When it comes time to fake my death, we'll have all the bases covered.

I really appreciate what Teo has done. He's uncovered a number of areas one needs to focus on before killing off an internet character.

:cool02::cool02:
 



He mentioned his gf twice after he knew she was not real. It is clear that he was either in on it or at least tried to use it to his advantage. He may have been trying to sway heisman voters sympathetic to him.
 

These virtual relationships never work out.
 



Seany said:
Have a little respect please, people. An imaginary young woman is dead here.
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Couldn't agree more. Her imaginary parents need time to grieve the death of their pretend daughter without all the media clowns sniffing around and digging into her imaginary past. Come on peopel give her some space already.

What a strange story, everytime it starts to make a little sense some new detail comes out that throws it in a totally different direction.
 

Yeah, I'm purely speculating here, but I'm guessing what happened is that he originally was the victim of a hoax but before he found out, he mentioned his "girlfriend" publicly and when he found out the truth (a long, long time ago) he just didn't want to admit it and decided to go with it. Either that or he was in on it all along, and it kind of kept growing on him and he just couldn't let it go.

But the guy made up a story about meeting her in person and shaking her hand in Palo Alto. So the guy said he had physical contact with her. So don't tell me he just figured it out in December.
 

The real issue for me is that the media reported on this "story" for years and nobody never did an ounce of fact checking.
 

Sportsfan24 said:
The real issue for me is that the media reported on this "story" for years and nobody never did an ounce of fact checking.
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Years? You mean months? It's kind of a weird thing to fact check. "Um, could I get an address for that funeral?"
 

He obviously lied about physically meeting her because it would seem really bizarre for people to think he had feelings for someone who he had not met. I've known people who got involved with online things and had feelings and talked every night (for a while) before physically meeting, so it's strange, but I don't think that aspect means that he was in on it.

The biggest thing is if a woman was in on it. It seems from everyone's account who is "coming clean" there seems to be som mysterious woman who would talk with him on the phone quite a bit. That I think makes him look a little better and makes the hoax look bizarrely elaborate.

I'm not sure what to make of him still talking about her around the Heisman. But that's a tough call, if his story is accurate, his reaction would have been 100% normal. He had no idea what was going on, people were going to be asking him about her, what was he supposed to say? Blow the roof of it at the Heisman? Was he supposed to say "hey, I think Manziel had a great year but I actually ended it with my dead girlfriend who is still alive". Of course not. I had to give a best man's speach at a wedding (my best friend at the time married a girl I was dating's sister), well, the sister and I broke up about a week before but we played the couple that night because it was a big event. I'm not saying that Te'o should have lied after knowing something was up at the Heisman stuff, but I don't blame him (if his story is true) for not saying anything until he knew something.

The last thing I'm going to ask in my Te'o ramblings is if people REALLY think this is some ploy for him to cover up his homosexuality? REALLY? Wouldn't it have just been easier for him to date a guy and not go through all of this? I imagine there are millions of closted homosexual men who are fearful of getting caught, I don't think this is a common way to hide from that.
 

btowngopher said:
Years? You mean months? It's kind of a weird thing to fact check. "Um, could I get an address for that funeral?"
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You are right, it was months. It would be the easiest thing in the world to fact check. People who die tend to have services of some sort. Those services are typically advertised, which would come up in a google search.

It bothers me that "media" just print whatever they are told. It is the medias responsibility to fact check because once it makes it to print it's elevated on the legitimacy meter. If that's how they do it, what's the difference between a blogger versus a "reporter"
 

Sportsfan24 said:
If that's how they do it, what's the difference between a blogger versus a "reporter"
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You are 100% correct, unfortunately, most reporters/journalists have forgotten this aspect. While the instant gratification of things like twitter gives tons of information, it doesn't always give the most accurate info. I think we've seen thisa few times with our local teams and the sports writers trying to be clever, funny, or informative on twitter, they sometimes give some decent info but are often full of terrible takes and misinformation. I don't think a journalist can possibly keep up with the instant info of the interweb, but they try to and it's affecting their product.
 


I don't think he knew...just don't think he was smart enough in 4 years to meet her in the flesh. Just evil people wanting to mess with a guys life...shows how pathetic their life is to spend so much time messing with somebody to that level.
 

Parski1 said:
I don't think he knew...just don't think he was smart enough in 4 years to meet her in the flesh. Just evil people wanting to mess with a guys life...shows how pathetic their life is to spend so much time messing with somebody to that level.
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He didn't care. A internet girlfriend was perfect for him......my gaydar meter is redlining. Being gay is the best scenario for him. It would explain everything.

If he's not gay then they should put him on life support....because he is too stupid to breath on his own.
 

Sportsfan24 said:
He didn't care. A internet girlfriend was perfect for him......my gaydar meter is redlining. Being gay is the best scenario for him. It would explain everything.

If he's not gay then they should put him on life support....because he is too stupid to breath on his own.
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The gay angle doesn't compute. He is Mormon. As Mormon's practice abstinence until marriage, couldn't he use this angle to cover the supposed homosexuality? Additionally, he is Mormon at a Catholic school and Mormons tend to want to marry within the faith. How big do you think the Mormon dating pool is in South Bend?

Interestingly, an anonymous ND player has said he "got" with other girls at ND this past year which leads me to think he was in on it. My personal opinion is he got involved with this for hype without realizing what it would morph into.
 

Winnipegopher said:
The gay angle doesn't compute. He is Mormon. As Mormon's practice abstinence until marriage, couldn't he use this angle to cover the supposed homosexuality? Additionally, he is Mormon at a Catholic school and Mormons tend to want to marry within the faith. How big do you think the Mormon dating pool is in South Bend?

Interestingly, an anonymous ND player has said he "got" with other girls at ND this past year which leads me to think he was in on it. My personal opinion is he got involved with this for hype without realizing what it would morph into.
Click to expand...

Abstinence doesn't equate to non involvement (not dating), you don't have to do both.

If the getting with other girls rumor is correct then the Mormon pool thing as well my theory would be wrong.

I don't see how he gets out of this without being a huge liar. Only folks trying to hide their sexuality behave this weird so I'm gonna trust my gaydar.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
The last thing I'm going to ask in my Te'o ramblings is if people REALLY think this is some ploy for him to cover up his homosexuality? REALLY? Wouldn't it have just been easier for him to date a guy and not go through all of this? I imagine there are millions of closted homosexual men who are fearful of getting caught, I don't think this is a common way to hide from that.
Click to expand...

The LDS church is very emphatic in it's teaching that homosexuality is a mortal sin. Manti may have wanted to make sure his parents weren't ostracized for having a gay son, if he is (not claiming he is or even caring). I don't know that this is the case, but it is as viable as any other explanation.

Truthfully none of the explanations make that much sense to any rational person.

1. Propelling his career - he plays at a very high profile college. All he had to do was play well to be noticed. Did that story really result in him being second in the Heisman voting? I guess it's possible...

2. Cover for being gay - why have one girlfriend for 4 years? Why not have a few for reasonable (he is Mormon) times, like 6-8 months? Then no one would be surprised not to meet her, etc.

3. Thought it would be funny - had to know people would figure it out eventually and would not find it very funny. And would his parents be inserting their stories unless Manti punked them too? Though it would explain how a handful of people have claimed to have met her.

4. Not initially, but figured it out prior to the Deadspin article - could be, and could have felt trapped into the lie. Would have to admit how dumb he was. But then why talk about it? Why not just say it was private and that he didn't want to talk about it?

5. No, he's that stupid - it goes beyond stupid, and really attacks his character. Doesn't try to visit a sick girlfriend. Doesn't try to attend her funeral. Doesn't try to send flowers to the service. Doesn't try to talk to her family. Spends 4 years in a relationship with a girl (even if online only) and never tried to spend time with her in person? Even as a Mormon, even if he wants to remain chaste, he can still at least be in the same room as her. Even if he has to have a chaparone present, wouldn't you want to meet her in person somewhere between the first message and year 4???

It could be a combination. Started off not knowing, then figured it out but stuck with it to propel his career?

So the conclusion? He's not a rational person. And if I were an executive for an NFL franchise I would consider that before I drafted him.
 

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