The story of Notre Dame All-American linebacker and his online connection was one of the biggest sports headlines of the 2010s.
The Fighting Irish star and Heisman nominee reportedly lost his grandmother and his girlfriend within hours of each other. Except, unbeknownst to Te’o, his girlfriend never existed, and he was on the other side of an elaborate catfishing hoax.
On Tuesday, Netflix released a documentary entitled “UNTOLD: The Girlfriend Who Didn’t Exist,” which revisits the Manti Te’o story in never-before-seen detail.
The sports world reacted to the doc’s premiere on social media.
“This was such an innocent era,” said Ben Dreyfuss. “It’s hard to remember even why this was newsworthy. So some dumb college player invented some dumb girlfriend “two towns over.”
“Yes, I will be watching this,” tweeted Dade Hayes.
“What a time to be alive on Twitter.”
“I used to do a media hoax research project in my Intro to Comm class to teach media literacy,” replied one user. “Every single year from 2014 on, a kid chose this story to research. They always initially thought it was funny/bizarre and then realized it was pretty sad.”
“You know it’s going to be a good doc when you hear that instrumental,” commented Bekah Berger
Check out the full thing here.