Manti Te’o and the Changing World of Online Romance

By now you’ve doubtlessly heard the bizarre story of Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o, Heisman runner-up and one of the main cogs in the Fighting Irish’s trip to the National Championship Game.  Arguably the biggest story in college football in 2012 was Te’o’s overcoming of the deaths of both his grandmother and his girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, on the same day and producing one of the all-time great seasons for a defensive player.

It’s an inspiring and heartwarming narrative, and the deeply religious and humble Te’o came off as a hero to many at Notre Dame and across the country.  There’s just one problem with the idyllic narrative: Lennay Kekua never existed.  As initially reported by Deadspin, the Lennay Kekua persona was created and maintained by Te’o’s friend Ronaiah Tuiasosopo and a possible team of co-conspirators for close to three years.

The level to which Te’o was involved in the hoax remains unclear.  Lennay Kekua was either an ingeniously manipulative (and successful) attempt by Te’o to drum up publicity for his Heisman prospects or a cruel ploy perpetrated with vague motivations against a colossally naïve, high-profile athlete, with little room for in-between.

Illustration by Evan Caughey
Illustration by Evan Caughey

It’s easy to see why Te’o could have truly believed he was in a relationship the entire time without ever having met his girlfriend in person.  Not only were Twitter and Facebook accounts created for Kekua, but sisters, brothers, and friends were concocted, each with their own social media accounts and phone numbers.  Using photos taken from the Facebook account of high school classmate Diane O’Meara, Tuiasosopo created a gorgeous woman who shared Te’o’s Hawaiian background and religious faith and, through Twitter, established contact with several of his friends and teammates.  Realistically, there would have been little reason to distrust whether this person actually existed – although the decision to enter a relationship with her without meeting in person shows a tad bit of indiscretion.

This phenomenon of social media dating (most of the time with one party hiding their real identity) has recently gained notoriety through MTV’s new series Catfish, based on the feature-length documentary of the same name by filmmaker Nev Schulman.  Each episode focuses on someone who enters an online flirtation that seems too good to be true, and, more often than not, they are.  A confrontation between the deceiver and the deceived ends each episode, with the hopes and excitement of the subjects dashed by meeting the people behind the fake profiles – heavier, less attractive, possibly even a different gender than the people they pretend to be.

Where Catfish and its creator could easily demonize these people for emotional manipulation, the show takes a sympathetic stance toward them.  Often times the creators of the fake profiles are homosexual or transgendered, ostracized and uncomfortable in their communities and retreating into the fantasyland of the online world and the attention and affection of strangers that likely wouldn’t give them the time of day otherwise.  Schulman allows them to tell these stories and the audience ends up sympathetic to both parties.

We still don’t know if Ronaiah Tuiasosopo created Lennay Kekua based on similar motivations, but as Te’o’s case and Catfish demonstrate, it is now easier than ever to invent a person through the internet, crafting an entire persona out of thin air.  For the depressed and self-conscious, these new people can easily attract come-ons and conversations from their desired gender, interacting with a sense of confidence and a feeling of being desired that the ones behind the screens don’t see as possible.

In the aughts, all it can take to fall in love is a few pictures, exchanged emoticons and professions of love through a keyboard, maybe a phone conversation or two.  On the one hand, it’s a heart-warming sentiment that love is no longer limited by distance or physical presence; if you’re living in the US, you can find your life partner anywhere from India to Italy, all from your laptop.  If the great power of the Internet is that it brings people closer together, these online romances embody that ideal.  It’s a thought that seduces and enchants many, but the overly trusting often fall victim to these emotions.  Just as often, perhaps more so, the good-looking, charming stranger you now consider your partner is not who they say they are and both parties are left confused and heartbroken.

This is not to say that the connection is any less real, and the people on Catfish often struggle to reconcile the two.  Even if your perceived significant other looks the polar opposite of what you’ve imagined, the conversations are still real, the emotions still genuine.  It seems that the some part of each “catfish” hopes that their partners won’t care about their looks and will remain in love with them based purely on that virtual connection.  Though rare, it does happen.

An ultimate judgment of the catfish situation has not yet been decided, but Manti Te’o, Lennay Kekua, and Ronaiah Tuiasosopo have undeniably brought the conversation public.  As the online world only continues to expand, a greater amount of social interaction seems to be occurring exclusively virtually.  But what happens when you interact not as yourself, but another person?  Does the Internet empower the bullied and depressed by allowing them a new identity? Or is it an empty medication that exacerbates the real problem, discomfort with oneself?  There’s a sort of spiritual liberation that can exist in the anonymity of the online world, where people are free to explore and obsess over any interest they may have with others, no matter how strange or obscure.  Collectively, we are still trying to determine how to reconcile this unrecognizability while holding the real people behind the online persona accountable.  Though the interactions may be virtual, the feelings they arouse are undeniably real and as we have seen, potentially powerful enough to fool millions of people, the entire media, and one Notre Dame linebacker.

About Jon Giardiello

Jon (COM '15) is from Wayne, New Jersey and doesn't think your jokes about it are very funny. He is majoring in Film/TV and minoring in Journalism. In between his brilliant Quad posts, he is one of the executive producers on BUTV10's own Terrier Nation.

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