I think the last major saga was the fascination with the many mistresses of Tiger Woods.

This Manti Te'o saga is one that perhaps people can relate a bit more since it involves the internet and being duped.

http://deadspin.com/5976517/manti-teos-dead-girlfriend-the-most-heartbreaking-and-inspirational-story-of-the-college-football-season-is-a-hoax

He and Katie Couric have the same publicist who happens to specialize in crisis management which explains how she got the on camera interview.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/manti-teo-tells-katie-couric-briefly-lied-girlfriend/story?id=18290412

So he admits one lie to her.

Whether or not he was in on the hoax, at some point he ran with it. How could he have claimed to have looked into her soulful eyes after a game prior to the date he claims to have discovered she was not real, unless you can make soulful eye connections with a photo?

It's just amazing to me that anyone in the media would believe that because he sent flowers to the "funeral" for which he has a receipt, that must automatically serve as evidence that he's being truthful. Apparently they've never seen any crime or legal shows.

There are also stories that he was dating girls from ND and a girl from another college (all of whom probably want to stay far away from this mess though the spotlight trumps all for some).....so the whole love of his life bit would seem all the more peculiar.

I love it when a person tells a lie and then after says that he or she does not lie.....yeah....except for that one lie. Even his father tears up over the perception of his son as dishonest. Yet, the father told a reporter that this non-existent girlfriend came to visit them in Hawaii.

Tangled web has taken on a whole new meaning here.

This story is just hilarious to me. Another jock being a total dumbass. What else is new?

The media is amusing me for now. I am getting a kick of them portraying this as some sort of major story. Various men keep insisting that we need to get to the truth

Either he's gullible and naive, got special mental problems, or he's manipulative and pathological.

He doesn't need crisis management because his aim is to be drafted to the NFL.

Maybe L&O SVU can do a special ripped from the headlines episode where the dead girlfriend calls him up to tell him she's alive and running from a predator instead of a drug dealer, or better yet....a drug dealing predator.

This story gets funnier or more bizarre depending on where one stands:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/24/manti-teo-girlfriend-voice_n_2542645.html?ref=topbar

And there's more:

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap1000000129949/article/washington-redskins-duped-by-woman-with-fake-online-identity

I've been reading a lot about this story and it's sheer insanity. I do find it hard to believe that he was duped, it sounds like something that was plotted out for attention.

Dr. Phil must be the best therapist in the universe because he apparently doesn't need to spend more than several hours to draw the kind of conclusions that duped reporters draw. I know there are some issues that are so common that it's evident when you see them. This is more of a Jerry Springer type story. Anyway, he's trying to make the guy behind the hoax a sympathetic victim. Last week it was Manti Te'o playing his saved messages of what sounds like a female voice. So if Dr. Phil aims to convince that it was really this character's falsetto then I would think Dr. Phil would have asked him to do a portion of the interview using that same voice just to hear it in person and see how long he could keep it up.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/manti-teos-hoaxer-love-dr-phil/story?id=18350974

Next up, Manti Te'o covers Prince's Uptown.

Gay hate in time for the Super Bowl.

http://americablog.com/2013/01/sf-nfl-player-chris-culliver-uses-super-bowl-event-to-tell-gays-to-get-out-of-nfl.html

As the story gets odder--when asked to prove that he was the voice of the girl on the messages, he said he would only do it behind a privacy screen. Huh? ESPN's ticker tape refers to it as an attempt at the falsetto voice. I don't know if they've heard it yet since it is scheduled to air tomorrow. It's sure to draw a lot of scrutiny.