[imagesource: Bob Leverone / AP]

In 2010, a documentary titled Catfish started to generate buzz.

Two young filmmakers, Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost, documented Nev Schulman’s budding online friendship with a young woman and her family.

There were dramatic twists and turns aplenty and the term ‘catfishing’ entered the popular lexicon. Catfish: The TV Show, based on the documentary and starring Nev and Max Joseph, has since run for eight seasons and 232 episodes.

All of that must have passed unnoticed for potential NFL superstar Manti Te’o (picture above). In 2012, he was a star linebacker for Notre Dame, a Heisman Trophy candidate, and a darling of American sports.

Here’s Collider with more on how that unravelled, as detailed in Netflix’s two-part documentary, Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn’t Exist:

On the same day in September 2012, Te’o’s grandmother and girlfriend Lennay Kekua passed away. It was an amazing story which evoked sympathy from the media and fans. However, there was one small detail which would change everything: his girlfriend did not actually exist.

Or rather, as the trailer makes clear, it was a fictional character created by Naya Tuiasosopo, a transgender woman who will also be revealing her side of the story in the documentary.

At first, I found it hard to believe that somebody young and reasonably tech savvy could be duped so badly.

However, I’ve watched the doccie and the lengths Tuiasosopo went to in order to fool Te’o are both extraordinary and sad.

The documentary was released on Netflix on August 16.

Hopefully, in some way, it can help raise red flags so that South African women can avoid being taken for a ride.

[source:collider]