The dead girlfriend hoax that dragged Manti Te’o through Hell and provided America one more reason to hate the University of Notre Dame is a Rorschach test.
Is Te’o a fallen hero, a victim of his own innocence? Or is he an overrated con man, exposed by New Media sleuthing?
Vanity Fair’s trip to Te’o's hometown in Hawaii makes a fair case for option one.
"No liquor. On Sunday, nothing’s open except church, fishing, and our garage," Brian [Te’o’s father] explains.
VF’s Ned Zeman describes how he went to Te’o's home, "heading east out of town, past the shrimp trucks, the pineapple plantation, and the cow pasture." He also shows how Te’o comes from a loving, tight-knit family that is skeptical of outsiders.
Zeman points out that growing up in this type of community made Te'o the perfect target for a catfishing scam. For example, when "Lennay" first reached out to Te’o, she mentioned two people Te’o knew, which was enough to earn his trust.
Zeman cites the Penn State/Jerry Sandusky scandal as an example of how not to handle a crisis. But, as a Penn State alum, I think there's another way he could have cited that scandal, as well. It has to do with community and media.
Before a Grand Jury convicted Sandusky as a serial child sex offender, the close-knit Penn State community in central Pennsylvania thought of Sandusky as the ex-coach who cared for at-risk youth. He had earned, and then exploited, their trust.
For good reason, Penn State and State College, Pa., have been raked through the coals for enabling and harboring a child predator. The fallout from the Sandusky scandal devastated the quiet Pennsylvania town. And the small hamlet, like Te’o's hometown in Hawaii, was scornful at the media for storming the gates and using horrible crimes to stand in judgment of an entire community.
Te’o’s mother couldn’t possibly imagine a kid creating a fake Facebook profile to take advantage of her child and con him into believing this elaborate lie.
Outsiders in the media were quick to ascribe stupid and, in Sandusky's case, criminal and evil behavior to the way small towns operated—even as the small towns recovered from internal wounds. The best thing about Zeman's article is that he doesn't fall into this media trap.