Catfishing, constructing a fake online identity to deceive another person into an emotional relationship, recently erupted as a truly modern scandal. And Te’o’s catfishing story has brought about a weirdness that conjures images of Tonya Harding.

The inspirational story of the sports season that was broadcasted for four months on essentially every national news outlet, was a hoax. The deceased girlfriend never existed.

Te’o might have been conned, but it was a mere pickpocketing compared to the bank robbery executed on national media.

How could a nonexistent person appear real for so long under such intense media spotlight surrounding such a sensational story? How could it require the journalism talents of Deadspin for the hoax to be exposed? The implications are frightening.

Person X is the favorite to win event Y, but did you ever hear about tragedy in his or her life Z? Constructing that story is lazy journalism and it’s lazy consumerism. Countless major, national media outlets ran stories reporting the nonexistent woman was a Stanford student, had been admitted to a known hospital after a car accident and had died months later of leukemia.

All exposing the truth required was for a single reporter to make a call checking Stanford student or hospital records, or asking for a death certificate.

Why wasn’t such a call made for six months — even when alarmingly little information of the alleged girlfriend was found outside of her relationship with Te’o?

When the Notre Dame-local South Bend Tribune started publishing stories of the nonexistent girlfriend, complete with details now understood to be false extensions of the hoax, national media apparently viewed their work as done for them. In a grand, corporate game of grade school telephone, the same five grandeur stories were echoed through the national news circuit without ever being checked for accuracy.

Modern journalism employment for major newspapers usually demands a written submission every 48-72 hours. Compared to the one-week minimum for a story that journalists a decade ago would have gotten, it is easy to understand why writers often survey other publications instead of uncovering every detail with traditional methods.

Veteran journalist Jackie MacMullan commented about the change in deadlines and the hoax, saying 20 years ago, you would go talk to the family members. Acquaintances of the grieving. Anyone you could. “That’s how you formulate a story.” The average deadline requirements of modern journalism seems to have changed that.

But perhaps even more interesting than the details and duration of the hoax was the public’s willingness to accept it as truth. After all, national media is not a national product without public demand for the story. How many All-American linebackers are in the country? How many of them have girlfriends? How many of those girlfriends get severely injured in car accidents, and then die shortly after of leukemia?

The seemingly storybook plot becomes instantly believable when published in unison by national media. The media, perpetually racing to get the sensational story, has conditioned us to believe and desire certain narratives.

We want the Manti Te’o’s of the world to exist—their stories representing narratives of love, tragedy and redemption are ones the public has come to expect of their entertainment.

This also explains the anger that rippled through the media — and my friend circles. If we identify Te’o as the naive target of an elaborate, catfishing operation, who is there for anyone to really be angry at?

The impulsive sense of betrayal onlookers felt was the clearest indicator of our reliance on familiar narratives; people felt betrayed because the incredible, desired narrative from which they drew joy and inspiration was fake.

The story had been as real to fans as Te’o’s girlfriend was to him. The familiar story of overcoming tragedy filled onlookers with so much comfort that no one found it odd the man in question did not visit the proudly broadcasted love of his life in the hospital, or even go to her funeral.

Every once in a rare while a story emerges, like an inconvenient mirror, that reflects ourselves in ways we would rather not see. To the world of journalism, it solemnly reminds us to do our homework. If my momma tells me she loves me, I should get some sources on that. To sports fans, it shows steroids aren’t the only way to sell a fake product. To all of us, it serves as a sobering reminder that fairy tales are best left on the bookshelf.

Oh, by the way, that CuteGirl1990 you have been talking to? Maybe a meeting is in order.

Tyler Gross is a guest columnist at The State News and a social relations and policy junior. Reach him at grosstyl@msu.edu.