The Manti Te’o Fiasco: Um… what?

So according to Deadspin.com, these two dudes Manti Te’o and Ronaiah Tuiasosopo were friends. Te’o went off to college and played football and was pretty good at it. Tuiasosopo made up a fake girl-person for the Internet, Lennay Kekua, and got Te’o to date her. Kekua had leukemia, because yay tears. Then she got into a car accident, because not enough tears. And then she died of leukemia, which inspired Te’o to play better, and also not question any of this even though he had never actually met her in person.

We’ve all read the full Deadspin exposé by now, right? In case you said no, I’ll give you a few hours to read through the original article, because it is crazy thorough and harder to put down than Prisoner of Azkaban.

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Are you done yet? Oh, sorry.

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Okay, hi.

As an added bonus, Kekua’s user pics were stolen from some poor girl living in Torrance, who was pretty freaked out when she saw her Facebook photos attributed to a stranger who was very clearly not her, and also dead. That in itself would be proof enough that something is sketchy and that Kekuka was probably a fictional person, but what really clinches it, is that Kekua’s favorite color was supposed to be white.

Look, if you’re going for a publicity stunt, or anything passable for reality whatsoever, using a random person’s image who’s not part of your scheme is probably going to blow up in your face at some point. And if you’re going to make up a fictional person, don’t list white as their favorite color. No one’s favorite color is white. That’s not a thing, unless your name is White Power Bill or you are Yoko Ono’s house.

I don’t know, you guys. This whole thing is a hot buttered mess, in a massively entertaining way. Who has theories? I’m all ears.

Image via Fox43