Why are straight people so obsessed with this Manti Te'o hoax silliness?

I mean, really, who gives a tick if a Notre Dame football player made up an girlfriend or not? And who cares if he was snookered by some online shyster? Why are straight media guys obsessing over this story? My apologies for perpetuating the story even if it is to condemn the story.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/2013/01/16/manti-teo-girlfriend-hoax-deadspin/1840415/



• Because they are bored with their lives. Plus, its a chance to make fun of someone. People like that. They like to see someone fail.

• It has something to do with his winning the Heisman trophy -- the dead girlfriend sob story helped him win or something.

• Except I don't see his name on the list of Heisman winners on Wikipedia, so maybe I'm misunderstanding the point of the story myself.

  R1

• They can only talk about Kim Kardashian so much.

• We should do a poll to see how many DLers would walk by this guy on the street and not know who the hell he was. I would be one of them. Id probably do a double take to look at his body, and that'd be it.

• Anderson Cooper's been obsessed with it too and he's not even interested in sports he says.

• Straight guys love gossip too

• I hate this story. This story has one fact that the media insists on rehashing over and over and over again. It's like the Petraeus scandal. Boring and one note.

• I am interested in knowing if he was in on the hoax, and if he was duped, then I wonder why he would be so gullible, and why would he exaggerate an online relationship to the status of a love story. The fact that his father claims to have met the imaginary girlfriend is enough to pique my curiosity. Was the father in on the hoax also?

• Why can't straight people obsess over normal things, like Henry Cavill's sexuality?

• It's the modern day equivalent of 'I have a girlfriend, but you wouldn't know her - she lives in Canada.'

• OP=Will. Yeah, we know what you did.

• R10= fat frau. Hon, BEING gay is not about a person's sex life. Go fuck yourself.

• And the bizarre overreaction of the night award goes to r13.

• This site would beg to differ, R13.

• Get back to us when you rule the world, Princess OP.

• Te'O was a finalist for the Heisman...He did not win. He did, however, win many other awards this year (about 7). He got the Dick Butkus Award for the most outstanding defensive player of the year (which the BCS championship game showed he probably didn't deserve). I think people are so obsessed with this because of the complexity of the hoax, as well as the motivation behind the deception. Te'o is trying to claim innocence, but one doesn't have to dig too deeply to find many examples of inferencea that he, and his family, had actually spent time with this "person". Notre Dame and Manti Te'o may hold fast to the claim that he was duped (ND has a habit of myth-making based on total fabrication), but their side of the story doesn't add up.

  anonymous

• He didn't win the Heisman -- that freshman from TAMU did. I don't know a lot about football -- was this a good choice?

• R5 football player body = fat.

• hump

• [quote]Why are straight people so obsessed with this Manti Te'o hoax silliness? Because they're trying to come up with every imaginable excuse as to why he created an imaginary girlfriend...other than HE'S GAY!!

• I still don't get it. He's just a freakin' football player! Who cares?! It's not like he holds an important position where he could be blackmailed out of giving up state secrets.

• Straight men use sports figures as their avatars. They will rush to defend them til the bitter end.

• Ask Notre Dame why it held back this story until after the championship game. Manti conceded it affected his play. The girl friend became part of the legend of Manti in his quest for the Liesman trophy. No one likes being lied to.

• Because he's gay and he's trying to hide it.

• Confused, OP? Pick one from the DL's repertoire of explanations for any behavior considered not appropriate: Because they're jealous. Because they were born before 1993. Because they are self-loathing. Because they are unhappy, miserable people. Because they eat meat. Because they don't have enough cats. Because they're men. Because they're not men.

• I'm not in the US so no one gives a shit about this story. But how do you pronounce his name? Is it Mantee TeeOH? Manatee O? ManteeOH?

  serious%20question

• I never heard of the guy until this hoax.

• The Q-Whip team loves this subject

• [R27] Man tee tay oh

• This story strikes at the heart of any straight idiot who worships sports figures. They are shocked to the core that a football player might try to manipulatie Heisman voting, might be unable to find a real girlfriend, or might be gay. They consider these things to be impossible, so they're quite stunned. And the really passionate fans are envious of the guy who perpetuated the hoax. Some of them love their favorite players so much that they're one step away from trying to become their favorite player's "online girlfriend".

  Datalounge Psychiatric Panel

• It was probably Notre Dame's idea.

• I got that wrong. It is Man tie tay oh

• I don't know. Straight people watch The Bachelor which is about as phoney as this.

• R25 Nailed it. Plus, there are a lot of closet cases out there who look up to him.

• Why are gays obsessed with The Golden Globes, Anne Hathaway, Harry Styles, and the rest of the stupid bullshit on here, OP?

• The story is weird. That's why.

• I'd like to know what's the story with the two guys on this trophy that Manti is holding?

  http://www.latimes.com/sports/sportsnow/la-sp-sn-manti-teo-talks-says-he-was-not-part-of-hoax-20130118%2C0%2C2650599.story

• Easy, R38. The one sitting down was doing the towel dance when his legs got tangled up and he fell. The one standing is hissing, "See?"

• LOL R39.

• Did he get picked to play in the major league?