Hmm, there's so much to talk about this week...President Obama's re-inaugeration (this time, it's personal)...the whole gun-control or non-control debate (I'm pro-not letting crazy people have deadly assault rifles myself)...Lance Armstrong talking to Oprah Winfrey about what an asshole he is (sorry, I meant "steroid-taking cheating asshole"). But the story that seems to be sweeping the nation is one that's entirely made up.
In case you've been living under a rock (or are more concerned about things that directly concern you, fools), Manti Te'o was exposed this week as either the stupidest man on the planet or a partner in one of the most bizarre hoaxes ever to be perpetuated (because we live in an age of absolutes, it can't just be "dude was an idiot" or "dude might have been in on it." It has to be one or the other extreme, truth be damned). He had been in a "relationship" with a "girl" he "knew online" and "had never met" because, as it turns out, she's about as realistic as the Tooth Fairy, Bigfoot, and the Yeti (the Chupacabra, however, is totally real. When will science acknowledge it?).
It's a funny story in that it's both reflective of the online culture we live in ("anyone you meet online might not be who they say they are" being the standard trope of the media this past week) and that it highlights the media's own peculiar inability to see through bullshit artists, be they political hacks or (allegedly) lovestruck college football stars who may or may not have used the idea of a fake girlfriend's death to build up their Heisman chances. Deadspin was the source I turned to for the particulars (after spending a day joking about it with my friends) and I have to say, if they are to be believed, Te'o was an innocent victim like Nixon was a pawn in the Watergate instigator's nefarious scheme. So, subsequently, I've had a field day with fake girlfriend jokes, because whatever the truth is the whole thing sounds like a movie (like the movie "Catfish," for example, which I've never seen but have been assured by my fake internet girlfriend is a real thing).
It's a bizarre time to be alive, to be sure; the internet promises the idea that the person you could be talking to is Tom Hanks or Meg Ryan, when the reality is that it's a serial killer or a cop (who says references to You've Got Mail are dated?). I am old enough to remember when it really didn't seem like that much of a stretch to assume that someone was who they said they are, but nowadays you have to be skeptical to preserve your sanity. People go online to define themselves, and sometimes they forge an identity that has nothing to do with who they really are (like, say the ringleader of the Te'o scheme, who is a dude who is very much alive). It can be a liberating thing to go online and actually find yourself, with a community of "friends" who very much are who they say they are, and who open doors to your psyche that you didn't know were there. But if they keep dodging actual meetings...you might best be careful about actually wanting to meet.
Now if you'll excuse me, I just started talking to this girl online, she's eager to meet me and gain access to my bank account, but she assures me she just wants to use a little of my cash to help bring her deposed father over here from Nigeria. It's on the up and up...
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