Re: 2013 DI BCS Thread: Thorthu Thame ish bacth!
Even if he genuinely, sincerely, 100% believed that she was a real person (incredibly unlikely), he was still the one feeding BS details to the media (or to other friends and family who then fed them to the media). Either way, he was lying - to me, it doesn't make any difference whether he was lying about a girl he thought was real or about a girl he thought was fake.
Because of the craziness of this whole thing it won't shock me if we find out he was involved or his parents were involved. One thing that is interesting to me...the conventional wisdom is that they have to be lying because they said they met her...when people google to find those quotes (such as his dad saying he met her) the quotes don't exist. It is a string of suggestions, innuendo, supposition, repeating other people's words etc.
What details did he feed to the media that he knew were false?
I've dealt with people who have had their life savings stolen from them by fraud, and they completely believed they were not at risk and doing the right thing as somebody stole all their money from under their nose. They don't call them con men for nothing...they gain your confidence and the 'art' is having you do the work for them. And their victims arent all old ladies.
Didn't Nowitzki come within days of marrying somebody who was not who they appeared to be? How many agents and agent's assistants and lawyers represent that guy and it was almost to the point of marriage. How many people join cults or Scientology?
After the fact, it is all so painfully obvious that they shouldn't have trusted the person, they should have put 2+2 together and gotten 3 etc. But that is the twisted beauty of this to the con man...historically it was about the money but this new version is about the thrill of leading somebody on and using the power of suggestion to have them become the biggest conveyor of the ruse.
JD - you have been and always will be a small minded twit. The Duke lacrosse reference was to the 'you believe one thing and then the next day you believe something else' aspect. The initial reaction to this, universally, was that Te'o had to be behind it. 12 hours later it isn't confirmed he did or didn't but the story certainly has taken a turn...I had never heard of catfishing until last night.
It is possible ND was too quick to come to his defense...I would hope for them that they had somebody other than an AD talk to the parents and determine if this was a hoax. Golic was more than just guarded today...you would think if his sons thought this was a complete hoax on Manti, he would know that and be more supportive. When he didn't reference any of that I thought "there might be a message that the team either knew it was false or suspected it was". Maybe he closed in a more supportive manner but that first message wasn't reassuring.
To me, a lot of my current opinion is based on the assumption that ND wouldn't come out so strongly and support him if they knew he knew...but like I said, although their AD is an ex-lawyer, I have no idea how capable he is of interviewing people and finding out if they are lying. The firm ND hired sounds like more of a technology firm...not necessarily a private investigating firm. They also wrapped up their work in 8 days if they presented on the 4th. Seems brief to me.
If the perpetrator is his cousin, there will be photos and communication between them...that won't prove Te'o was in on the hoax. Time will tell though, no way they can keep the whole truth about their involvement away from this storm of media and investigators.