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Thread: Manti Te'o hoax (wth?!?)
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Re: New draft/FA/offseason thread
I and I think Luke have said it a few times. To avoid the embarrassment or shame or whatever you want to calling of having a relationship with someone you've fallen for but haven't met.
Many can't wrap their head around that, but I know people who are similar to this, so I've seen it first hand.
IF Manti's story is true, I would bet the reason he fell for her, is him being a devout Mormon and not having sex before marriage he didn't have a real girlfriend because he might feel pressure to have sex and avoided a real relationship altogether. So instead he was desperate and believed everything with this girl.
Again, if you've never seen anyone like this it's hard to imagine, but I have personally seen people like this.
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Re: New draft/FA/offseason thread
I don't think you are making an effort to understand the facts of this whole situation.
#1--- find me an interview where Manti HIMSELF says that he met her in person. Even if you can, that was his biggest offense, lying about meeting her to provide more legitimacy to his online relationship. I'm not saying it was right to do so, but I think it's a far more forgivable offense than to have created the entire hoax.
#2---The interviews where he talks about his "girlfriend" were two months before he even found out that she wasn't real. Again, he got a call from the supposedly dead girl a couple nights before the Heisman ceremony and, after realizing he had been caught in a hoax, he went to ND authorities.
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01-17-2013, 11:49 AM #64Hall Of Fame Poster
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Re: New draft/FA/offseason thread
No. No. That's plausible. That's less plausible. If he wanted to prolong the hoax, yes.
You are choosing to believe basically Te'o and ND's statement of events exactly as they were promulgated. That's your prerogative, but I believe the evidence to support that notion is less credible and less voluminous than the evidence which suggests Te'o had at least SOME degree of knowledge of what was going on. That's the bottom line here.
This could all change if the report of investigation or other documentary evidence that ND's PI uncovered is revealed. But guess what? Here's another guarantee for you: it won't be, nor will anything else be revealed by ND or the Te'o family. They will issue brief statements, sit back, and decline to answer most questions, citing privacy concerns.
Look, I deal with duplicitous and deceitful people for a living. I'm just seeing a lot of behavioral patterns here that correlate to deception. I know how these kinds of things proceed. Te'o seems to be following the "admit to a lesser offense and beg forgiveness in hope of distracting attention from the unanswered questions" approach. I believe that he and his people think they can just deflect this if they spin it into a Catfish story. He will have ND's help in that respect and unless criminal activity occurred there's very little chance that any really credible source will stand up, challenge him, and win in the court of public opinion.
There are critical dissimilarities between your typical online girlfriend/Catfish hoax and what happened with Te'o. I can't summarize them all, but if it really was a Catfish scam, it's the greatest one ever perpetrated--because of 1) the size of the cast of characters involved, 2) the high media attention and scrutiny subjected to the mark, 3) the size of the web of social media involved, 4) the length of time it transpired, etc. etc...
I'm not saying Te'o's version of the story is impossible. It's just less likely given what we know and can surmise at this point.
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Re: New draft/FA/offseason thread
I agree with you, sir. Something is definitely odd. I met my wife online and did a ton of online dating in my single days. I talked for hours on the phone with girls before meeting in person, but never considered one a girlfriend. It doesn't seem normal to me. However, even though it seems like something a guy from "The Big Bang Theory" would do, and not something the nation's most recognized football plyer would do, I still think the "evidence" that he originated the Hoax is microscopic at the moment.
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Re: New draft/FA/offseason thread
To your points:
1) How many does it take? One or two?
2) It did not get high media attention until it was over
3) A facebook, twitter and email Hoax is hardly difficult to pull off
4) I can understand this one, but people desperate for a relationship are gullible to say the least.
I may be playing devils advocate just a bit too much her, but it seems, you're just trying to confirm what you believe.
BTW - I find it ironic a bunch of guys on the internet (whit thousands of post on this site) are debating if someone could fall for an internet relationship
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01-17-2013, 12:04 PM #67Hall Of Fame Poster
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Re: Manti Te'o hoax (wth?!?)
First of all, it isn't "established" that Te'o deceived his family. But even if it were, so Te'o deceived EVERYONE around him--friends, family, teammates, MEMBERS OF THE MEDIA, etc. and yet you can't accept that it's not a bridge too far to believe he did it wilfully, instead of just out of embarassment?
A practiced and skillful deceiver like Te'o is not prone to be so easily deceived by others. So you mean to tell me that all the times Manti told his family he was meeting her in Hawaii, only for her not to show up, he never got concerned, nor did his family? All the times he interacted with her family (people obviously of varying ages, backgrounds, and personalities) he never noticed anything weird about their interactions? He never found it strange that even though she claimed (AND HE TOLD OTHERS) that she was in the hospital, no nurses ever came to check her blood pressure?
I mean, there are just STAGGERING leaps of faith you need to make to believe that Te'o was just merrily trotting along, being tricked by a MASSIVE web of lies and MASSIVE cast of characters, while ALL THE WHILE HE HIMSELF WAS MASTERFULLY MANIPULATING HIS ENTIRE WORLD TO ACCOUNT FOR HIS SHAME OVER AN ONLINE GIRLFRIEND.
So after you get through believing all of that I have a great tract of oceanfront territory in Nevada I'd love to sell to you.
First of all, the dissimilarities between Ray Lewis and Manti Te'o are too numerous to name--chiefly that we actually had access to the facts revealed by the investigation in Atlanta BECAUSE IT WAS SUBJECT TO SCRUTINY IN A PUBLIC COURT OF LAW. Te'o is, to this point, not.
Ah, and there's the rub. I guess you're a Notre Dame fan, then? I'm not a hater of that institution, but I am hesitant to accept their word at face value--especially after we saw another similar institution like PSU lie through their teeth to protect themselves and their stakeholders. I might be cynical, but not particularly so for ND.
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Re: New draft/FA/offseason thread
And thats fine, im not saying its not plausible or evidence points conclusively to one side or the other. Im saying what does this say to teams... hes a liar and easily "duped". Im sure some teams will look at it as nothing, others will see issue with it. Thats taking it best case scenario for him and assuming hes being honest now and not in on it. Either way it effects his stock in some way.
not going to the hospital or funeral i would think negates the argument that hes was simply socially naive and in love with her but embarrassed about how they met, at least on some level. I would think the girl you tell your parents you want to or could see yourself marry would at least mean you see her whens shes sick or dead.
Thats fine, and thats your prerogative but just because im not agreeing with you doesnt mean im not understanding the evidence. You need to hear it from the horses mouth so to speak. Im not saying anything is wrong with that, but your defendant in the best scenario is still a liar and thats his saving grace to his character and reputation?
Im not saying its not possible i just think something is going on. Hes the one that brought this onto himself by lying in the first place.-JAB
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01-17-2013, 12:18 PM #70Hall Of Fame Poster
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Re: New draft/FA/offseason thread
Nobody's debating if someone could fall for an internet relationship. It happens all the time. We're all familiar with internet communication... I didn't meet my wife online but we communicated over the internet when we were dating and I moved across the country on a long-term work detail for 4 months. There was plenty of intimacy and genuine emotion there. I also know in my personal life at least one couple that got their start through internet dating. I find nothing questionable about that and unfortunately as a corollary, as you know, hoaxes and whatnot can occur.
The problem is... based on the information we have, it just seems to me to be a more likely scenario that Te'o had some knowledge of what was going on. It requires fewer leaps of faith and fewer gaps in logic.
And if you think Te'o and his girlfriend weren't subject to huge media scrutiny, you're wrong. How many major national media outlets carried the story of Te'o playing with a heavy heart in the wake of the deaths of two people very near and dear to him? It was literally EVERYWHERE. And yet none of those journalists thought to do their due diligence and make basic inquiries into the circumstances surrounding the girlfriend's death! (Nobody pulled an obit, nobody contacted the school to find out her major/extracurriculars/etc., nobody contacted any other schools, community organizations, etc.)
The only footnote to that... interestingly enough... Gene Wojciechowski of ESPN DID do his due diligence. He asked Te'o if he could talk to Lennay's family... Te'o claimed they had refused. He asked for pictures of Lennay from the family through Te'o... Te'o refused. He couldn't find anything about her at all through internet. Te'o was the one who ran around telling everyone in the media about this despite not having any hard proof of anything that had happened. (link to the Gene W. interview: http://espn.go.com/blog/notre-dame-f...-teo-interview)
And by the way... I have to reiterate that the cast of characters is pretty damn big here. Te'o made passing comments regarding Lennay's friends, several family members (including at least a mother, father, and an older sibling)... that's what I mean by "web of social media." ALL of them were texting, Tweeting, on Facebook, etc... you're talking about individual accounts for each of them and "actors" to get on the phone and pretend to be them since Te'o claimed he had talked to them. That's a really complex operation.
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01-17-2013, 12:30 PM #71Hall Of Fame Poster
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Re: Manti Te'o hoax (wth?!?)
For the version of events you and LukeDaniel are buying into to be true, it means Te'o manipulated and deceived a lot of people into believing in Lennay and especially that he had met Lennay. That includes Te's whole family as well as (in all likelihood) numerous friends and teammates. YOU are saying that, not me, and what else do you call someone who deceives people other than a deceiver?
You can disagree with me as much as you like and I have no problem with that. This isn't a criminal matter and the burden of proof is not beyond reasonable doubt, only a preponderance of the evidence. I have worked in law enforcement and given sworn testimony on the witness stand many times over my career--would I testify to any of this? No, of course not! This is all just bullshitting. We're not talking about convicting this kid, only our opinions on what might have happened as we see it.
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Re: Manti Te'o hoax (wth?!?)
That would only be true if he is 100% guilty as you seem to believe he is, or should I say convinced he is.
Which is pretty shocking to me, when you want to convict someone in the court of public opinion without even hearing their side of the story.
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