Alt-Focus: Have you ever duped somebody or been duped online? How closely does your online persona match up with who are you in real life?
Between this, Lance Armstrong, and everything else were basically just becoming a nation of sociopaths.
I meant to post this, too. The link to the Deadspin coverage was in the CNN link, but if you haven't read it . . . Deadspin link They did a pretty impressive job of investigating, and the comments after are hilarious. There was one that's dropped off the top now, that said something like: "But AJ McCarron's girlfriend is real." - Brent Musburger
It's probably killing Armstrong today that he's the second story on the sports pages behind another athlete that lied.
I have to wonder what was going through his head. See, I think every kid has been there. You fuck up in a minor way, but then end up making more and more ridiculous lies as Mom and Dad start asking questions. Pretty soon it becomes apparent to everyone except yourself that you're lying through your teeth. You end up learning from that experience and (hopefully) learn to fess up to your little fuck-up instead of spinning an insane web of lies around it. This guy did the same thing, except as an adult and with complete over-the-top ridiculousness. My guess is that he invented a girlfriend (for whatever reason) and then killed her off when people started asking too many questions and the "Oh, she goes to a different school" excuses started piling up. See, I'd like to think that it was unwitting instead of sociopathic. It just seems more natural to think of a kid who makes a little lie (fake girlfriend) and then ends up losing control over it just to keep himself from being found out. I doubt he thought that he'd make ESPN over and over again... and after that happens, what do you do? You just lied on national television! Are you going to come clean now, or hope that it all just blows over? So, I don't think he's a sociopath, although that may be the case. What confuses me is his PARENTS lying to the press about her.
The guy is a mormon that attends a Catholic college and participates in sports. All three of these things are filled with homophobes. I'm willing to bet he invented her after getting a boner in the shower. No I'm not gay! I have a girlfriend! Check my twitter! I can never love again.... the one true love of my life is dead.... No more questions about shower boners.
I don't know, and I don't care. Why couldn't Te'o just do what everyone else does and say he had a girlfriend who lives in Canada? Far less likely that someone would actually investigate that.
Judging by our country's complete lack of knowledge on any foreign nation--even our neighbors--most people would think he was dating a moose, or a maple tree, and simply ask more questions. Like, "How do you stay away from the antlers?" or "Does the syrup get sticky?" This whole thing is just bizzare. That someone would go to such great lengths over something so trivial is beyond me. That anyone has given this more than the shrug of a shoulder is a testament to how utterly retarded the media has become and how desperately they grasp at straws to create a "story." Also, if Te'o had any decency, he would've at least been caught with a real doll, combing her hair asking her how her day was.
Leave it to a minor league baseball club to already try and capitalize on this situation. And like Frebis above, I agree that this whole thing screams of a coverup for him being all Broke Linebacker Mountain. It's more and more becoming the only possible explanation that would at least make a modicum of sense. I can't believe that he's truly, truly that dumb and either a) really fell for an elaborate hoax or b) was involved and somehow thought he'd never get found out.
Alls you need to do is get any person or person-shaped object, dress them up in one of these: Put the hood up, and bam, instant Canadian girlfriend.
My whole question about it. So say he was fooled in a hoax and was a "victim" as ND and ESPN want you to believe. Ok, but he still flat out fucking lied about meeting her at a Stanford game, clearly conspired with his parents which lead to his dad lying about her coming to Hawaii with him, and carried on the story after he knew it was a hoax, all in the name of media coverage, attention, and fuel for a Heisman run on the back of his "heroic" and "tragic" story. Even if he was that naive, which I have doubts (he is an Academic All American, and even though he is a Mormon, its not like he grew up in a fucking bubble with a cult), he still perpetrated the lie. Thus, fuck him.
I think he's gay and this is just a small lie that he got asked about, making up more lies until it got completely out of control. I feel really bad for this guy. Someone in a masculine sport like football can't easily come out of the closet, and now this poor dude is on the national stage dealing with possibly homosexuality (plus he is Mormon and goes to a Catholic school, which makes his reality even more hellish). The trouble is, this story is bizarre and humorous to a shitton of people so this is THE top new story, and probably will be for weeks. I wouldn't be surprised if this dude pulled the trigger of a shotgun with his toes.
Focus: Oh man, online personas. Every time I think of the online not matching up with reality, it reminds me of this one story from back when I spent a lot of time with my computer and not enough with real people. I knew these two girls via the internet for many years. Girl 1 introduced Girl 2 to her cousin online, and Cousin and Girl 2 got into a pretty solid relationship. They were internet dating for at least a year, and finally decided to meet up. At that point, Girl 1 comes clean: she'd been impersonating her cousin, and Girl 2 had actually been in a relationship with her all along. As for my own online persona, it's probably a more accurate depiction of me than what I show people I know in my day to day life.
My online persona is nearly dead on with my real life persona. I'm more than suspicious of the rest of you. Two examples directly related to this board and the TMMB/RMMB from which it sprang: 1. The Brian saga, where a board member, in the military, "inflated" his accomplishments and experience, and was eventually called out very publicly. 2. More amusing was the MeShell saga (documented by BC Woods, another former RMMB member). MeShell was the user name of a TMMB/RMMB board member. Her avatar, if I remember correctly, was a bunch of cherries in the sunlight. Very erotic. MeShell migrated over to Freak Safari (FS) when that board opened, but continued to post on the RMMB for awhile. She claimed to be a 20-something year old woman, a part time actress/model. She posted maybe one pic of herself, and it was indeed very hot. After a year or two, she posted that she had cancer. You can see where this is going. She received an outpouring of sympathy, and eventually became kind of close (in e-terms) with a couple of the folks on FS. After awhile, things started to stink like those rotten cod in Denmark. Some FS board members did a little digging, and lo and behold, she wasn't a hot 20-something year old. She didn't have cancer. She wasn't a model. She was a woman in her 50 or 60s, who had co-opted the image of her own daughter. I believe she was also a public school teacher. Folks on that message board hounded her off the board, and contacted the school were she worked - until she was abruptly let go.