Behind Manti Te’o hoax about girlfriend lies a deep desire to believe

The Internet can be a blunt and brutal place. It’s built on unruly mobs moving across the virtual terrain, digesting stories and leaving behind carcasses.

But it is also one of the last vestiges of wide-eyed, unfettered belief. The former describes how it is that the strange and elusive case of Manti Te’o is being efficiently dissected on the Web.


The latter describes how it is that people online could love girlfriends who do not exist. Te’o, a star Notre Dame linebacker and runner-up for the Heisman Trophy, had made the story of his leukemia-stricken girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, an essential part of his personal narrative.


She had a photo on Twitter, and he spoke poignantly about their conversations and exchanges. After learning she died, he went out and made 12 tackles against Michigan State, or so the story goes. Except that she didn’t die. Because she didn’t exist. Kekua was either Te’o’s creation — a publicity hoax — or someone else’s prank.

Either way, the story unraveled when Deadspin.com started pulling threads. “To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone’s sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating,” said Te’o in a statement issued Wednesday evening.