Manti Te’o Easily Fooled in Hoax; Could You Be? [VIDEO]

The whole story surrounding Manti Te'o is pretty surreal. He meets a girl on Twitter and talks to her there and on the phone but they never meet. Then she "dies" and it's discovered later that she never existed.

Now we discover that the genius behind the hoax, Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, was the voice of Lennay Kekua! Was Te'o that gullible? No. He fell victim to the way people communicate these days.

According to research, the main way younger people communicate is by text or social media. There is very little face -to-face interaction. Anyone can fall victim to this type of hoax. Anyone!

Before I get to the lesson, I have to say that Tuiasosopo's ability to sound like a woman is freaky. That he would go to these lengths to get close to a rising star is very disturbing. In case you don't believe he could fool you with his voice, listen to his voicemails here. Thanks Deadspin.com!

The lesson is that without face-to-face communication, you don't ever really know who you are dealing with. Ever. We know how hard it is to get to know someone in person, but being online and without seeing facial expressions, movements, etc. there is no way to "size" someone up.

Before you become close with someone online and do or say something that could be damning or embarrassing, think about Manti Te'o. You are setting yourself up for problems. And you are short changing yourself. Why have an online friendship or romance as intense as Te'o's seemed to be when you can experience much more "live and in color"?

Here's a video chuckle to wrap this up: