{"id":33555,"date":"2013-01-17T13:51:52","date_gmt":"2013-01-17T19:51:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=33555"},"modified":"2013-01-17T13:51:52","modified_gmt":"2013-01-17T19:51:52","slug":"teoible-lies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=33555","title":{"rendered":"Te’oible Lies"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Manti Te’o grasping at straws. Also missing a tackle.<\/p><\/div>\n

Perhaps Andy Warhol’s\u00a0famous quote\u00a0<\/a>should be amended.\u00a0 In the future, even fictional people will be famous for 15 minutes.<\/p>\n

By now, most of the world has heard the too-crazy-to-be-true story of Notre Dame and Heisman Trophy finalist Manti Te\u2019o’s fictionally deceased fictional girlfriend Lennay Kekua<\/a>.\u00a0 The facts are relatively few\u00a0yet terribly convoluted for a love-story\u00a0that might as well have been crafted by Nicholas Sparks<\/a>.\u00a0 What is known\u00a0is that Te’o\u00a0purported to have a long-time girlfriend in distant California\u00a0who communicated with him\u00a0largely via Twitter.\u00a0\u00a0In a 21st Century George\u00a0Glass <\/a>sort of relationship, Te’o’s girlfriend was a digital creation of his friend Ronaiah Tuiasosopo.\u00a0 The revelation of Lennay Kekua’s true identity has resulted in he-said\/he-said allegations of whether Te’o was the victim or willing perpetrator of the elaborate hoax.<\/p>\n

Captain Tuttle <\/a>was unavailable for comment.<\/p>\n

The details of the hoax have been engaging.\u00a0 Theories abound.\u00a0 Is Te’o, who is a practicing Mormon, in a homosexual relationship <\/a>with fellow Mormon\u00a0Tuiasosopo?\u00a0 Did Te’o invent the girlfriend (or at least her Lifetime moviesque demise) to play upon the heartstrings of Heisman voters?\u00a0 Or is Te’o the victim of a long-term ruse – perhaps the least plausible theory unless Te’o also believes he’s about to claim millions of dollars from a Nigerian prince he met via email.<\/p>\n

The “real” motivation is less interesting than the motivations of the media, fans, and anyone else who makes up the sporting establishment to believe Te’o’s lies.\u00a0 And whether Te’o’s initial motivation was to hide his sexual orientation or not, Te’o most certainly did lie to further his career.\u00a0 The narrative of Te’o’s loss of both his grandmother and girlfriend on the same day\u00a0was by Te’o’s own standards <\/a>a near storybook tale of woe.\u00a0 Te’o’s otherwise great\u00a0season was bookended by every reporter gushing on his ability to perform amid such personal torment.\u00a0 Te’o himself declared his greatest career challenge as September 12th – the date his very real grandmother died and a very big lie about his girlfriend got even bigger with her “passing” from cancer.<\/p>\n

The timing of Te’o’s story coincides quite well with another high-profile web of lies – the Tour de Farce of Lance Armstrong’s career<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Te’o did not do what Armstrong did – no rules or laws were (as far as we know) broken.\u00a0 But the connection of Te’o and Armstrong lies within the motivation for their appeal – our desire for compelling narrative that overwhelms a\u00a0needed\u00a0dollop of skepticism.\u00a0 Manti\u00a0Te’o having a strong statistical year is a nice story.\u00a0 Manti Te’o\u00a0overcoming death and loss is\u00a0a much better one.\u00a0 Lance\u00a0Armstrong surviving cancer to ride again is a nice story.\u00a0 Lance Armstrong winning 7 Tour de France’s in the face of cancer is exceedingly better.<\/p>\n

The fans and media’s desire for narrative to drive accomplishments can be seen\u00a0even when the truth isn’t at stake.\u00a0 Adrian Peterson’s near record breaking year was given phenomenal coverage, as it should have been.\u00a0 But while Peterson may win the MVP, just a few short years ago Tennesse Titans RB Chris Johnson ran for over 2,000 yards <\/a>but didn’t even receive one first place MVP vote<\/a>.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 A lot of reasons can be suggested, but nearly breaking a record isn’t nearly as impressive as nearly breaking a record after reconstructive knee surgery.<\/p>\n

Manti Te’o, at some level, understood this.\u00a0 Sports\u00a0“journalism”, like most reporting, has little connection to facts and almost everything to do with emotionalism.\u00a0 Actions don’t count – narrative does and the anger being expressed by reporters against Te’o\u00a0today is less for his lies than for what they reveal about the motivations of journalists.\u00a0 As one sportswriter remarked, even the man who beat Te’o for the Heisman, Texas A&M QB Johnny Manziel, won in part on his ability to manipulate the media.\u00a0 Afterall, there was no “Johnny Football”, <\/a>as Manziel is known, on the Heisman ballot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Perhaps Andy Warhol’s\u00a0famous quote\u00a0should be amended.\u00a0 In the future, even fictional people will be famous for 15 minutes. By now, most of the world has heard the too-crazy-to-be-true story of Notre Dame and Heisman Trophy finalist Manti Te\u2019o’s fictionally deceased fictional girlfriend Lennay Kekua.\u00a0 The facts are relatively few\u00a0yet terribly convoluted for a love-story\u00a0that might […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":425,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[105,4,122,44,77],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-first-ringer","category-media","category-oh-the-humanity","category-stupid","category-the-rare-sports-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/425"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33555"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33561,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33555\/revisions\/33561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}