He said
We never seem to be too short on stories to draw our attention away from important things.
Whether you've been following Lance Armstrong's confessions of a fraudster and cheater or Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o's fake dead girlfriend, there is a lot of drama coming out for things we generally don't really care about. It's come to the social media light that some Subway sandwiches are only 11 inches, instead of the specified foot-long. Now that's scandalous.
The Te'o tribulations caught my attention, like so many others, because of how strange it is. I have no trouble figuring out Lance Armstrong. He broke his sport's rules, like everyone else in the cycling world, and raised a bunch of money for himself with a lie. That's easy.
The Te'o story is just bewildering because of how many questions it raises. There are few answers out there at present, and when we learn something new, more questions arise, even if we may know who the culprit is.
That's what makes an enthralling hoax. A big story came out when Te'o's girlfriend died last fall.
More recently, it's been revealed that his girlfriend wasn't a real person. She only existed as some prank to woo the football player. His relationship with this woman was exclusively online and over the phone. I really don't know how anyone falls for this stuff, but I'll assume Te'o was just a chump who got royally duped.
The more you learn about this story, the stranger it gets. Nobody really has anything to gain from playing a prank on a college football player. As I've read, Te'o got a lot more publicity and Heisman Trophy consideration following the hype around the fake dead girlfriend. Te'o was the only person who could have gained anything from this.
With the Heisman hype comes a higher draft pick, a bigger contract and potentially millions in sponsorship deals. I'd like to give the guy the benefit of the doubt, but the whole thing is very bizarre and otherwise inexplicable.
It's when the answers don't make any sense that a hoax becomes so interesting.
She said
The most impressive and interesting hoaxes are elaborate and leave people wondering "How did these people fall for it?"
The Manti Te'o hoax is a pretty good example, whether or not he was involved. If he was involved, then all the power to him. He's gained a lot of attention as a football player and his career may benefit from the fake-online girlfriend he claims to have had.
My favourite hoax was featured on Dr. Phil. Four women were all in love with a man whom they had met online. All women dated this guy and ended up falling in love with him, despite never meeting in person. For some of the women, the hoax went on for years, because the man they fell in love with never existed. Actually, the person running the online profile was a woman! She used voice altering technology when she called the women and led them on for a long time before she was caught.
My overall reaction to this was: Why are some people so dumb? Don't we all know that the Internet isn't as open and honest as we'd like it to be? I know several people who have created online dating profiles using a stolen photo - just for fun! I don't know anyone who has taken it so far as to trick people into loving them, of course. My point is that it's easy.
I definitely feel pity for Te'o, and for the women on Dr. Phil's show. They seem to have had their hearts broken because they genuinely cared for the liars who played them online. But, heartless as this may sound, the severe "ouch!" factor of these hoaxes only makes them more intriguing. The emotional investment of all involvement really keeps my attention. These elaborate, lasting hoaxes are interesting, and encompass all that is evil in the Internet, but awesome when exploited by the media.
