down to multiple “celebrities” in todays society, the difference however between the social scandals of ancient Greece and a person such as Manti Te’o has been the the ease of accessing the information by the general public due in large part to social media outlets. While there were just as many social scandals in “olden times” as there are today it was much rarer for these incidents to be made public information. Social media has made private and oft times embarrassing incidents become very commonplace that the people involved in these are usually able to weather the storm until someone else makes a similar or more embarrassing mistake for the public to focus on. Because of the ease of accessing this information even people who would normally have little or no impact on what would be considered “newsworthy” have their mistakes thrust into the spotlight of social media to be judged and ridiculed by society. Such was the case with San Diego Chargers linebacker Manti Te’o in the 2012-13 college football season. 
For Manti Te’o, a mormon football player from Hawaii ending up involved in a fake girlfriend relationship scandal would not have seemed within the realm of possibility when he signed to play football at Notre Dame, however he did become involved in an embarrassing scandal that ultimately affected his draft status from possibly being selected in the top 10 in the 2013 NFL draft to falling all the way to the second round and costing him millions of dollars in contract and endorsement deals. For the first three years of his time at Notre Dame Te’o was an outstanding football player and an excellent example of how a student-athlete should be in college, he was a hard worker and not involved in anything that would hurt his future or his reputation. Things however changed during the course of his senior season when Notre Dame was enjoying an undefeated season, news came out that Te’o’s girlfriend Lennay Kekua was going through cancer treatments, then a short time later had died from cancer and only six hours before her death Te’o lost his grandmother to diabetes Te’o became a household name for his strength in dealing with this as he chose to remain with the team and help preserve the undefeated season because it was what Lennay and his grandmother wanted him to do. This was the story that was first reported and it became viral as this story of love and strength of Te’o for Kekua was shared millions of times through social media outlets as well as traditional news outlets. Then after finishing second in both the Heisman Trophy voting as well as the National Championship for college football a tip was sent to deadspin.com claiming that Lennay Kekua was not a real person at all but was made up and that Te’o had been fooled by a man claiming to be Kekua online.
In years past the forms of communication were very different than they are today and that while there was contact through phone calls most often it was hand-written letters as the main form of communicating with others. It was also rare then to begin writing letters and claim to be in a committed relationship with someone who you had never met. Contrast that with today when the evolution of the internet and social media sites has made it commonplace for people to meet and declare themselves to be involved without ever meeting face to face. The downside to this is that with a few clicks of a mouse anyone can “become” someone else and there is not really a way to check and see who you are writing to on a computer. As Brad Paisley said in his song “Online” a person can be 5’3”, overweight, live with their parents and be a sci-fi fanatic but when they are online they become 6’5”, muscular, driving a maserati. This was the case with Lennay Kekua who in fact was Ronaiah Tuiasosopo a 22 year old aquaintance of Manti Te’o’s hometown of Laie Hawaii. When deadspin writers Jack Dickey and Timothy Burke began to investigate this story they found that Lennay Kekua
had no fingerprint on social media other than that she was the dead girlfriend of Notre Dame star Manti Te’o and despite accounts from people that Te’o and Kekua had talked and they were indeed close Kekua only seemed to exist through Te’o. This led to the story being released that Manti Te’o’s inspirational story was a hoax.
With this story now catching fire on social media Manti Te’o became a very polarizing public figure. Te’o initially refused to admit Lennay Kekua was fake and then refused to talk about it at all. This led to every possible media outlet presenting their version of the story and he was the main story from CNN to late night talk shows, to social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Everyone seemed to have an opinion of this story from Manti Te’o being an innocent victim involved in a very disgusting hoax to a liar and an accomplice in some sort of publicity stunt. Nobody however seemed to know the truth but everyone was content to continue spreading their views and opinions of the situation and the character of Te’o. When Deadspin reported that public opinion stated that 80% of people think Te’o was involved in the hoax as more than a victim Te’o and Notre Dame finally made a statement in which Te’o said he had been duped and was embarrassed to admit that it could have happened to him. While being interviewed by ESPN Te’o was asked why he had stuck to his story of his dead girlfriend after it was reported that she was a hoax he said he was embarrassed and tried to stick to the original story in hopes it would go away. This sent shockwaves through social media again with more opinions being sent out about Te’o’s character and with the NFL draft approaching many executives began to question whether or not they wanted Te’o to be part of their organization. When it was finally admitted by Tuiasosopo that he had created Kekua and Te’o was in fact an innocent victim it should have been the vindication Te’o needed instead it began the social media frenzy of just how stupid must Te’o be to not know this was all a hoax and there never was a Lennay Kekua.
With the damage done Te’o could now “focus” on the upcoming NFL
draft but the questions still remained with many people and he was selected in the second round by the San Diego Chargers. Social media became the big difference in Manti Te’o being an embarrassed college football player who may have been teased by a few close friends about his fake girlfriend to being an inspiration turned liar to finally becoming some stupid victim in the eyes of the general public. Social media has made many people think they have the right to know everything about everyone and has also given almost unlimited access to many similar stories. Our ability to share and obtain information using social media can be a great tool or it can at times like in the case of Manti Te’o be our worst enemy. 
Great analysis, especially in comparison with old school impacts.
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