The Girlfriend who didn’t exist

[WhatFreshHellisCismas]

I am just watching this on Netflix and my jaw is on the floor.

Not only at the story itself and how it all came out, but how how Naya makes it all about themselves - their feelings and their self validation - what they put Manti through for this is just shocking

Poor Manti.

I had no idea about any of this. Will definitely give it a watch.

One of the things that’s got my goat is how the Guardian have portrayed this as a ‘sympathetic’ version of the tale - towards Naya - but what about this naive and frankly lovely young man who was manipulated this way.

its the self centred entitlement that comes through that sums up so many things for me

It was awful.

I think a little more context makes a better thread

Agreed, balanced with not ‘spoiling’ it for anyone who wants to watch the documentary

A promising young American Football player who was catfished.

@WhatFreshHellisCismas Totally agree, I was thinking the exact same thing when I watched it.

@WhatFreshHellisCismas - aghh! I’ve just read the Guardian article and it’s awful! It made me so angry.

It's horrific. And another case of a trans identifying person using this identity as a smoke screen for sociopathic behaviour

could we perhaps have a link to the guardian article?

Here is the Guardian article. I am disgusted that the catfisher - aka an accomplished liar and the destroyer of a promising young man's life/career, completely knocking his confidence and turning him into a national joke - is given any sympathy whatsoever.

www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/aug/15/manti-teo-the-girlfriend-who-didnt-exist-netflix-documentary-hoax-nfl

I’ve not watched it all but so far some very interesting parallels with Sweet Bobby (though we never got to hear the catfish’s side and it was so difficult to understand the motivation).

The Guardian article glosses over the fact that Manti came from a dirt poor background and had to play football to have a chance of college and a decent career. By contract, the catfisher had a relatively privileged background and apparently (according to the Guardian) could have indulged their wish to "be a woman" amongst their "local LGBTQ population, which includes a large and well-established community of people who identify as fa’afafine, meaning third gender or non-binary."

There was absolutely no need to involve an unsuspecting third party. Yet, it's always about trampling others' boundaries and about what they want - as catfisher stated in the article, "I wanted to be able to live my life as trans. I still feel horrible [about the hoax], and sometimes I wish that everything had been undone. But then also another part of me was like, I learned so much about who I am today and who I want to become because of the lessons I learned through the life of Lennay.” Sure. Practically no fucks given for the man who is now in therapy and trying to pick up the pieces of his life.

If the catfisher had been anything other than a trans woman, there's no way they would have been portrayed so sympathetically in the Guardian. I am watching the documentary now, and I don't see the equal sympathy the Guardian is seeing in it. Because there is no equality between the 2 parties' culpability/blame/damage done. All the blame lies with one party, all the damage was inflicted on the other.

I need to watch it, but The Guardian article was awful, poor little sweet innocent Naya, my arse as Jim Royle would say.

Nothing that happened to Manti Te'o affected his career. He was still drafted at arguably a higher position than his talent merited, and he played 8 years in the NFL which is both above average career expectancy, and longer that which a player of his limited athletic ability could reasonably expect. He is also still formally active, so his playing career isn't technically over even now.

There are a lot of reasons to have sympathy for Te'o, but having a 'destroyed career' is not one of them.

It’s the ‘well it’s all totally fine because I learned something about myself’ justification that really sticks in your craw. The egocentrism. And then the journalist presenting it as if it’s totally reasonable, defensible even on that basis.

I gave up on the guardian article when it started whittering on about deadnaming.

its the self centred entitlement that comes through that sums up so many things for me

I agree - I guess people see what they want to see in the documentary, but I definitely felt the portrayal of Manti's deep devastation over the whole situation and his maturity in seeking help and working through his hurt and confusion juxtaposed with Naya prancing around in a skirt said it all.

The lack of self-awareness was astounding, especially when Naya basically said they didn't regret it doing such a terrible thing to Manti as it helped them to work through who they truly are as a person - WTF?? It takes a truly terrible and deranged person to put someone through the coma thing every day for a month, faking the breathing and everything- that's insane behaviour.

And I don't believe for a second that was Naya's voice on the phone calls, otherwise why wouldn't Naya use that far more female-sounding voice for themselves now? Many transwomen pay a small fortune for vocal coaching and similar to sound even half as 'female' as Naya's supposed phone voice, so I'm calling bullshit. Also, it seems obvious when Naya starts talking about the phone voice in the doc that there's more to it than 'oh, that's totally my voice that I can do' - it's just not, hence the fact it can only be reproduced behind a curtain. Bizarre and awful.

Nothing that happened to Manti Te'o affected his career.

I suggest you read the last 3 paras of the Guardian article. It is very clear from Manti's own words that the experience has had and continues to have a huge impact on his confidence on the football field. Yes, I would call that destroying what could have been for him.

The documentary states he was drafted far later than expected which potentially cost him millions of dollars and impacted his career. He was ridiculed and mocked mercilessly. Teams didn’t want to draft him in case he was gay. And yet he has forgiveness in his heart where as the one that caused the chaos only considers their emergence from the chrysalis

I suggest you read the last 3 paras of the Guardian article. It is very clear from Manti's own words that the experience has had and continues to have a huge impact on his confidence on the football field. Yes, I would call that destroying what could have been for him

That may well be what he believes, but the simple fact is he was nowhere near good enough physically to warrant being drafted any higher than he was, and his shortcomings on the field itself are entirely down to his limited size and athletic ability. No amount of added confidence would overcome those.

The documentary states he was drafted far later than expected which potentially cost him millions of dollars and impacted his career

That's simply untrue.

I am a huge NFL fan, have been for decades. It was my team that drafted Te'o. They moved up in the draft to specifically to take him. At the time it was almost a universal opinion that the team had 'reached' for a player whose ability did not warrant drafting him that highly. As his career panned out, it was obvious they were correct. He didn't even earn a second contract with the team that drafted him, which is the single biggest indicator there is that they blew the pick, he didn't warrant the draft slot, and that he did not play to a level commensurate with the investment made in him.

He was ridiculed and mocked mercilessly. Teams didn’t want to draft him in case he was gay. And yet he has forgiveness in his heart where as the one that caused the chaos only considers their emergence from the chrysalis

Yes he was mocked, that's true, and there was some suggestion that some teams had blacklisted him over concerns about his sexuality, but my point was that despite all this, one team went ahead and drafted him at a spot where his talent didn't really merit the selection in any case, they were roundly criticised for this, not because of any off-field concerns, but because of the perception that the player didn't merit that on ability, and in the fullness of time the people who felt that the player was overhyped as a football player were proved true. He was given a chance over and above what his ability merited, and that came with being paid over and above what his production merited.

Manti Te'o still had a lucrative and reasonably lengthy career in the NFL despite the sideshow of his college days, but there's absolutely nothing whatsoever that suggests he'd have achieved anything above and beyond what he actually did achieve if the whole saga had never happened. He just wasn't physically capable of it, and he wasn't actually that talented in the first place.

Cruel, cruel behaviour from that creature.
Self absorbed, self important and no one else matters as she learned so much about herself. What is she bragging about? That she learned that she's a liar?
That she is heartless? That she impacted horribly on a decent young man?
I don't care about her being trans but wonder why she doesn't aim to be a decent human being.

"the romantic hoax at the heart of Te’o’s national humiliation was about much deeper and more interesting questions of identity, faith and belonging – for minorities in particular – in early 21st century America".

Are they seriously setting the scene of someone being humiliated as romantic? And as a "question of identity"?

No they are saying it was a ‘romantic hoax’ because the hoax was that Te’o thought he was in a ‘romantic’ relationship.

And as a "question of identity"?

I think they mean because Manti and his parents dismissed all the red flags early on because the fake girl was part of their minority culture/religion (his dad says this in the doc) and because Manti was finding it really hard to fit in at a catholic school far from home as a Polynesian Mormon so the catfish was easily able to exploit his social/cultural/religious isolation in that context.

@XDownwiththissortofthingX well I’m sure you know far more about it than the individual concerned, his agent, plus all the experts who were stunned at his late draft 🙄

He stated himself about the anxiety attacks that plagued his professional career.

it doesn’t matter if he was a footballer or an accountant or a teacher - or any career - this person’s actions and their entitlement and self absorption massively impacted his life, adversely.