Bizarre Internet Story: Athlete Falls in Love with Fake Woman

I am not even sure I understand the following story.

An American college athlete apparently fell in love with a woman he met online, but it turns out that
it was not really a "woman."  It was some type of "hoax."  A hoax is a plan to deceive or trick a person to gain some benefit.

So apparently someone pretending to be a woman contacted this college sports star and after many e-mail exchanges, he fell in love with the fake person.

At some point, the fake person was said to have died of a terrible disease.  Apparently the star athlete used this information to gain sympathy from journalists in order to advance his career.

In any case, welcome to America in the internet age.   Here's a weird story about a celebrity and the internet and deception.  I don't have any discussion questions after this story because even I don't understand what is going on.

http://news.yahoo.com/nfl--manti-te-o-speaks-for-first-time-since-revelation-of-girlfriend-hoax---043012320.html














Yes, I was responsible for this amazing scandal in which I exposed something I felt to be wrong: http://nwww.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20100511000742