ABSTRACT
Former Notre Dame linebacker and current NFL player Manti Te‘o told a story about a dead girlfriend, allowed it to spread across traditional and social media during the 2013 college football bowl season ahead of the NFL draft, and then had to deal with the fallout (Sonderman, 2013). The online publication Deadspin titled their report, “Manti Te’o’s Dead Girlfriend, The Most Heartbreaking and Inspirational Story of the College Football Season, Is a Hoax.” People “were taken in” by what sounded like a great story. Te’o then released a statement, which read, in part:
This is incredibly embarrassing to talk about, but over an extended period of time, I developed an emotional relationship with a woman I met online. We maintained what I thought to be an authentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone . . . To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone’s sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating . . .
