By FRANCISCO E. JIMENEZ
Staff Writer
reporter@sbnewspaper.com
Francisco E. Jimenez
It’s easy to laugh at Manti Te’o and his current predicament.
He’s a pretty successful college student, a finalist for the Heisman trophy who’s on the verge of making millions of dollars in the NFL.
Sure he seems like a likable guy, but the fact that he has become such a high-profile figure seems to make him fair game for jokes and insults, which I guess goes for just about any other high profile athlete, actor, musician or politician.
I’m guilty of making my own fair share of jokes at his expense. It’s too easy. But I don’t know all the facts. Who am I to judge this kid?
The whole situation is confusing, and only seems to get more confusing with every new development.
Bill Simmons of Grantland.com said it best:
“…the whole saga was so elaborately convoluted from start to finish that this was either (a) a phenomenal hoax pulled off on someone who was phenomenally naive; (b) a snowball-type story in which Te’o got catfished, found out in the August-September range, then decided to keep embellishing the story and making things worse over just coming clean; (c) the handiwork of one of the greatest pathological liars who ever lived, and someone who was involved in the hoax the whole time; or (d) the workings of a closeted football star who invented a fake girlfriend to throw everyone off the scent, never imagining that his career and team would take off, and that the ensuing level of scrutiny ended up trapping him within this spiderweb of lies that just kept getting worse and worse.”
I initially found myself believing that he was simply duped by some cheapskate, and I felt really sorry for him. But now I find myself wondering how someone could be so dumb? Especially after reports that he continued telling the tragic story of his girlfriend, who allegedly died six hours after his grandma passed away, after he found out that he was the victim of a hoax.
I can’t really decide if I should sympathize with him or not. But I can, to a certain extent, relate to his alleged situation. I was once the victim of someone lying about their identity, and to say that I was utterly embarrassed by the whole thing is an absolute understatement.
This happened at a time in my life when I was still particularly unfamiliar with social media. It was the age of MySpace. I had an account for a little less than a year, and I was that guy who (unless I didn’t like you) generally accepted every friend request I received, because why not? Right?
Well, I recall receiving a friend request from a girl who I didn’t know. She claimed to have just moved to Harlingen from somewhere out of state (I want to say Oklahoma, the details are kind of hazy at this point). She sent me a message explaining that she was new to the area and was trying to meet new people. Fair enough. She appeared to be a pretty cool and attractive girl, so what the hell.
Eventually we developed a friendship, well as much of a friendship as can be developed on the internet. She even added me to her Top 8 friends on her profile (which wasn’t really that strange because I’m awesome). I seem to recall her wanting to meet up in person, probably at Starbucks, or some other generic hangout that didn’t require its attendees to be over the age of 21.
I don’t remember all the details, but I do remember one day receiving a message from the girl on MySpace, except it wasn’t her. It was a different picture, different name, and a completely different profile. “What the…?” The person sending the message claimed that she was the victim of identity theft, and the person who I had been socializing with on MySpace was nothing but a phony.
I remember the conversation going something like this:
Girl: “Hi, I don’t know you, but there is a person using my photos and pretending to be someone else.”
Me: “Wait… what?”
Girl: “(She) is not real. They are using my photos.”
Me: “Oh. I feel stupid.”
Sure enough, the girl messaging me had never been to San Benito, or the Valley, she wasn’t even American. She was Canadian. When I went to check out the imposter’s profile, all the photos had been deleted, and right next to her profile picture where people usually posted quotes or captions was a smiley face and some text that read something along the lines of, “Goodbye…”
I still don’t really understand what that was all about. Is this just something that people do? This happened a considerable amount of years ago, and reading about Te’o’s predicament brought back memories of those couple of weeks back from the deepest parts of my memory. I don’t know what the deal is with Te’o, and maybe he’s just as guilty as the alleged perpetrator. Maybe he isn’t. This is all so strange and confusing.
Whatever the case, it’s safe to say that Manti and the media have finally learned a lesson that – like me – had to be learned the hard way.
Friends only exist in reality.
Read this story in the Jan. 20 edition of the San Benito News, or subscribe to our E-Edition by clicking here.
1 comment
“What you see is what you get” (The Best of the Dramatics)