It seems impossible that T'eo isn't complicit in all this nonsense. Then again, he's a big, dumb, religious doofus who is both product of and participant in a very incoherent culture that is fueled by a toxic mix of celebrity-worship, myth-building, and collective delusion. Maybe he was duped, but also embellished to fortify his personal lore.
It's difficult to trust any spin coming from what appears to be a tight-knit Samoan community in Hawaii, and anyone who believes ND's administration is a person who is declaring a desire to be fed convenient lies. ESPN, even when forced to do journalism on this, still seems more a PR extension of NCAA culture, so we get weird interviews with the father of a guy who recruited T'eo about his draft stock. The guy also knows Swarbick. What objective insight can come from such a man?
This reminds me of the Yale QB last year who supposedly skipped his Rhodes Scholar interview in favor of playing in the big Harvard game. Turned out he had no interview, owing to a sexual assault case against him. He knew, the school knew, his coach knew. So how does that story get legs in the first place? How do major news outlets run with the story without doing due diligence? Who believes in the Rhodes Scholar who leaves Nebraska for an academic powerhouse that (wink wink) doesn't offer athletic scholarships?
I guess my point is that bold, pernicious lies are commonplace at this point. I don't know where the line in the sand is anymore when it comes time to sort through who knew what, who was in on what, and how far an individual or institution will go to cover its tracks.
It's a hell of a thing to watch the AD tear up at a presser and speak of hiring independent investigators to look into this supposed hoax and then read about the university's response to an alleged sexual assault committed by one of their football players, and its response to the student who died due to outright negligence on the football team's part. It paints a picture of people in service to an institution whose only mission is to preserve itself. I can't trust anything from those people or that institution.
Ultimately I don't care about T'eo's culpability. However it shakes out, something is very wrong with him. He needs help, not judgment or scorn. Him running with a trumped up, sentimental narrative isn't the most bizarre thing, really. That's as American as it gets. It's downright presidential. The most fukked thing to me is that ND and ESPN are now in control of dictating the terms of a story that should be earning them as much scrutiny as T'eo, if not more.
Also, what does it mean that Notre Dame has known this was a "hoax" since late December yet never addressed it until Deadspin forced the issue? If this was an issue of fraud, wouldn't they have eagerly come out with the details? Why would T'eo still discuss his nonexistent girlfriend's non-death with major media after he and ND learned they'd been had? These teams have sophisticated PR officials who carefully shape and maintain the team's and university's narrative - am I to believe they suddenly didn't know how to get out ahead of this story, that they couldn't* and wouldn't tell T'eo exactly what to say or not say during the media blitz that accompanies a national title game?
There's that scene in The Wire when Hamsterdam is on the verge of blowing up as a story and bringing everyone down with it, and the Mayor convenes several people to figure out how they might spin it all favorably. There's no doubt in my mind that ND knew something was fishy, and some people met to decide how to handle it, and they decided to perpetuate the lies and hope the situation went away with T'eo leaving. I'm also certain they had a contingency plan in their back pocket in case someone blew the lid off everything, with their dates in order, T's crossed and I's dotted, independent investigation bought and paid for as proof of institutional credibility.
Would anything surprise you at this point? I mean as far as institutional corruption and people going to extreme lengths to protect money-making institutions and their high-salaried positions within those institutions? If they had their lawyers and advisers meet with T'eo, his family, and this dude running the account and devised the best possible explanation they could, would that be remotely surprising? I'd believe that more readily than T'eo being fooled into believing in some imaginary woman. He said he knew her for 4 years, he met her in different places... it just doesn't add up. There's not enough duping in the world to explain away all of the lies T'eo aggressively fed the national media.
I guess what I'm saying is that this story doesn't just fukk T'eo, it fukks ND and ESPN because they pushed this bullshyt and benefited from it and had everything to gain from (at best) not examining this story at all, or (at worst) perpetuating what they knew to be bullshyt. ND and ESPN sure as hell ain't about to fall on their swords, so they both are deeply invested in pushing this "catfish" angle and giving a platform to others who confirm it. I think we long ago left the age of the personal hoax (I'm thinking about shyt like the Georgia Tech coach - if I recall correctly his name was O'Leary - who invented credentials on his resume, and the Blue Jays manager who invented a history as a Vietnam Vet) and we're now in the age of the grand, collective hoax (baseball, media, and steroids; Yale, their QB and coach turning sexual assault into a story of nobility and loyalty by some warped alchemy; Lance Armstrong, Brett Favre, and Roger Clemens being obvious pieces of shyt for their careers but never being called on it until the behavior had become so reckless and criminal that it couldn't be ignored or spun, and it was too late for the public to care very much anyway). It's impossible to tell whose hands are dirty anymore, because everyone is so tied together, all of their personal interests served by one another so that after awhile you can't untangle them.
We won't ever know what the fukk happened. No chance. In place of clarity and naked truth we get Lance Armstrong giving curt answers to vetted questions posed by Oprah fukking Winfrey, and an AD choking up as he refers to an investigative report that won't be made public. We get ESPN interviewing their own employee who did a major piece about T'eo and his girlfriend and allowing him to declare, with no critical followup, that he didn't dig deeper into Kekua's death or existence because "there's no manual on this sort of thing," as if fact-checking isn't the most basic of all journalistic practices.
The "catfish" narrative is too neat and clean: it turns T'eo from fraud to victim; it depicts Notre Dame as protective, prompt, and diligent in investigating the story; it scapegoats some random dude in Hawaii no one gives a fukk about. All of this smells rotten as can be. When has the truth ever been so convenient?
Finally, someone with a real perspective on this story!!!
they need to do some I.Q tests on this kid he might be mentally challenged. You have "messages" from the guy apologizing to you but you dont release them 
I remember when that tiger shyt got out. Espn was 
on him. Now look at this scramble on 4th and 35 they trying to pull off. SCUST
this fakkit Gay'o disgusts me
