Te'oing: Move over "Tebowing", there's a new Meme in town

[Tusk]

Last year, a new, internet meme called Tebowing had people posting pictures of themselves in the 'kneel down/ fist to forehead' prayer position based on NFL football player, Tim Tebow, and his famous ritual at football games. Tebow decided to Trademark "Tebowing" after it became all the rage...possibly for monetary gain, maybe for charities, or control of it.




Well, it looks like "Tebowing" has gone the way of 'Planking', as a recently revealed and truly bizarre story of Notre Dame star Linebacker, Manti Te’o, came to light and given birth to the freshly born Meme of "Te'oing"

Short synopsis for those who don't know. (I don't know the whole story either, but this is what I've gathered):

Notre Dame had finished the season 12-0, and had itself set up to play for the national championship (They got crushed by Alabama 42-14). In the midst of a season that brought ND back to College Football prominence, Manti Te'o, the team captain and Linebacker, emerged as an inspirational leader and potential Heisman Trophy winner.

Part of his story told of a pair of personal tragedies that occured in his life that was used as an inspiration for his play which has contributed to ND's run. Apparently, he spoke of a girlfriend who he had 'known' for 3 years, who had a traffic accident, and after she recovered, discovered that she had Cancer. The story continues that when his grandmother died, his 'Girlfriend', Lennay Kekua, died hours later of complications from Leukemia.

So this story of Inspiration from tragedy involving the undefeated, Iconic Notre Dame football program was too irresistable to the media, who ran several stories...ESPN had programs about him, and Teo himself spoke on several occasions in interviews about the love he had for his GF, and the tragedies that inspired his Heisman hopeful play.

Well, it turns out Lennay Kekua, student at Stanford, never existed. Even though Te'o's father had spoke of Manti meeting her in Hawaii and Teo, himself, spoke of their eyes meeting for the first time at a game against Stanford. They spoke as if these two have actually met. It turns out, his 3 year relationship with her was only by phone or internet chat. They never physically met. Furthermore, all these media who did stories on this, never did any fact checking on the GF and it took Deadspin, to expose this.

Te'o and ND are now saying that he was a victim of something called "catfishing", or to dupe someone online by getting them to think a fictional creation is real:

New times call for new idioms. The Manti Te'o story appears more of a catfish story. The reference is to a certain kind of Internet dating hoax and comes from a 2010 documentary film and a new MTV reality series.

The term, says Parry Aftab, Internet privacy and security lawyer, is one of many for "anybody who pretends to be someone who they're not on social media. It's done all the time."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nca...n/1566438/

It now appears that 'friend(s)' of Te'o may have been conspiring to make Teo believe he was having/had a real relationship (internet or otherwise) with a real girl, Lennay Kekua...

The story is still unfolding, but back to the subject, Te'oing....
People have apparently started posting pics of themselves kissing or hugging an invisible significant other.




I know, if what Teo and ND are saying is true, this must be so embarrassing and hard on Teo....That being said, this story is an example of so many things about life, personal relationships and technology in the US, of the 21st century, that you can't help but be intrigued by it....

[Himm2]

It is very possible to fall deeply in love with someone on the internet without ever having met them in person. Social media can be a scary thing.

[Tusk]

That may be true, but this went beyond that. I guess I'm amazed that in this day and age, someone his age and I'm assuming, maturity, would think that he could get away with the fabrications, the specificity of his fabrications, without anyone checking....

On top of that, retelling it over and over to the national media? Maybe he was almost right as it did get this far as it is.

He spoke of locking eyes after a football game, meeting her in Hawaii and being told "I love you" as her last words to him before she 'died' . There was no doubt Notre Dame and he got a lot of publicity and increased donation from his story of 'inspiration' that motivated him to lead the Irish to an undefeated season.

Curiosity had me watching an episode of MTV's show, Catfishing, which the term is based on. The girl in the episode, after being caught, said she had multiple fake facebook accts, and that she was basically addicted to being able to live multiple different lives through theses accts....

Then it occured to me this was actually an extension of the old RPG, or Role Playing Game, like Dungeons and Dragons (D&D), except your NPC's (non player characters) are your Facebook friends. In D&D, you create and live a fantasy life of adventure fighting monsters and demons, growing your experience and status. Technology has allowed people to extend this 'fantsasy' life into reality, unconcerned that the person on the other end, might believe that it's allreal....