Manti Te'o - Catfished?!

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Manti Te'o is Notre Dame's golden boy linebacker who is the most decorated defensive college football player of all time, winning eight post-season awards in 2012. Te'o gained a LOT of media attention for playing fiercely in the face of tragedy -- more specifically, the deaths of his grandmother and girlfriend on the same day. It turns out, however, that his girlfriend Lennay Kekua never existed!! Te'o has supposedly been catfished! 

(for those of you who haven't seen the movie Catfish or the subsequent MTV show, here's the definition from mtv.com --
cat·fish [kat-fish] verb 
To pretend to be someone you're not online by posting false information, such as someone else's pictures, on social media sites usually with the intention of getting someone to fall in love with you.)

It has yet to be determined whether Te'o was in on it the whole time as a media stunt, or if he was really duped by a friend. Allegedly, a friend of Te'o used pictures from a high school friend and created Kekua's online persona. 

My two cents - I find it hard to believe that the #2 college football player in the country can't get a real girlfriend!! Why didn't he ever fly her out to a game? If he never met her in person, why did he talk and tweet about her to anyone who listened? Why didn't he visit her in the hospital if she was dying of leukemia? Did he go to her funeral? If he was in on this stunt, I think it will hurt his draft prospects -- who wants to play with someone you can't trust??

As such a strong presence in the college football world (and since he's a likely top-10 NFL draft pick), his story has been pimped out and covered by every media outlet, memes and all. Check out http://teoing.tumblr.com for posts on invisible girlfriends :P