Saturday, January 19, 2013

Reality check



Is Manti Te’O a real person?

We’ve learned his girl friend was not real. Why should we assume he himself is real? Do not most of us know him only from watching televised football games? Has anyone actually passed him on the street? Or sat down with him face to face? Perhaps Te’O is himself not real and the public has been flummoxed once again by a media in love with itself.

An ESPN reporter met with him this past week (so I’m told) and asked a lot of questions. But how can I be certain that reporter was even real and not just a computerized figure developed by other computerized figures and fake images?

Te’O is a stranger to mainland North American culture. Of Samoan ancestry, he grew up in the Hawaiian Islands. At least that is what the news biographies state. Perhaps he is truly ignorant of the behavior of technology and doesn’t understand that technology makes what is real false and what is false real. In that respect, he is no different from other people his age. Te’O is like a five year old child who discovers the gun in his parents’ dresser drawer. He is playing with a weapon that not only can but will backfire on him.

But perhaps Te’O doesn’t really exist either.

Te’O never met his girlfriend. That challenges our language. What do the terms “girl friend” or “boy friend” mean if two people never actually meet but just simply exchange text messages or “talk” on the telephone? So many “relationships” today are based on illusions. A machine mediates the relationship – or – perhaps the machine actually controls the relationship, which is seemingly what happened in this case.

Yet does it really make any difference? The ESPN reporter concluded his report acknowledging that the case won’t make any difference in terms of Te’O’s draft possibilities in the NFL. “He’ll soon be a millionaire,” the reporter stated blandly, as if some kind of cause and effect principle were at work here. Do not only do your job well or exercise your talent well, but do something sensational to get your name and face in print, on TV, and – more importantly – online. And you'll be rich!

Like many young people, Te’O has a thirst for celebrity status. Talk about the unreal. Just as horror movies of the past featured characters called “the undead,” celebrities are half human at best and live only when spotlights are turned on. The rest of the time they are closeted away until the electricity is turned on.

There obviously are no rules for celebrities. Celebrities can do what they will. They are not accountable to the rest of us. Te’O is truly living the American dream! Te’O is now an entry in Wikipedia! He is immortal.

 

 

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