Welcome to the 92nd edition of Content Nausea. You can read No. 91 right here. Please let me know what you think. Thank you for being here. Here is the welcome blog.
There are a couple things I remember all happening on the same day in January 2013: The Philadelphia Eagles hired Chip Kelly away from Oregon to be their head coach; Maryland beat N.C. State on a last-second put-back by Alex Len that prompted the winter break crowd to storm the court and everyone else to debate whether it was appropriate to storm the court; and Deadspin broke the story that Manti Te’o’s dead girlfriend was a hoax.
This was also the same day — in my memory, I’m not going to fact check this — that Julia Brown officially released “Library” and Sunset Theme posted “I Told You Don’t Love You” on SoundCloud.
I remember most of this because I was traveling home from a week in Oregon, where I helped clean out my grandparents’ house. (The chore I remember doing the most was popping the lids off old paint cans). The sun rose over Mt. Hood on the PDX-MSP leg and set on the MSP-BWI leg, and for whatever reason, it just a vibrant day. [You can read more about my relationship with airports here.]
When I got off the plane at BWI, I turned on my phone, and all of the notifications I missed while I was in the air. One was from ESPN’s ScoreCenter app, and it flitted by quickly. But I caught the word “Deadspin,” and I was really confused. Why was ESPN crediting Deadspin for something? Especially after this bizarre thing that happened at my school less than two months earlier? (Hi, Mark!)
I was hooked on the Manti Te’o story. I couldn’t really comprehend the scope of it. But when I got home from the airport, I watched Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick’s news conference, and I listened to live a reaction show from The Solid Verbal. I had been vaguely aware of the Lennay Kekua story, but it was in my periphery.
According to Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn’t Exist, I completely forgot everything that happened next. I forgot about Dr. Phil and Katie Couric and all of the questions about Te’o’s sexuality. I forgot how ruthless the media environment of January 2013 was.
I watched both parts of Untold on Thursday night after seeing a clip of Te’o shared on Instagram. I clicked through it because I didn’t want any spoilers, even if I wasn’t sure if I would ever watch it. But the more I thought about it, the more I remembered that day and that week and that month and that time. The world was shifting around me, and I was “trying to figure it out,” and the Te’o story helped throw things off the axis. It didn’t make sense.
I have a couple quibbles with the documentary. Some of the framing from the primary participants could be pushed back on. I don’t think why Te’o ended up in that situation in the first place was really explored. The how of a) it was a different time on the internet and b) he just wanted to connect with and help people certainly was, but I thought there was more there. And I do wish the line from Deadspin story where the anonymous source was “80% sure” Te’o was in on it had been broken down, too.
The twists and turns for the primaries in the intervening decades were interesting. The Deadspin view that it wasn’t a story about Manti Te’o but a story about mainstream media getting something completely wrong was also something that I had sort of forgotten.
But I think the most compelling part of the documentary was Te’o’s closing monologue where he discussed the emotional, much less physical from a football standpoint, impact the hoax had on him and the inability to tell whether people truly cared about him or loved him. That was heartbreaking.
Hanif Abdurraqib articulated it a bit better than me:
I guess one of my big takeaways from Untold is that while the Te’o story might just be a footnote in my life on the internet — and something to keep in mind in my journalism education — there was so much more to it. That obviously holds true for everything in life. But to see it something this bizarre is lasting.
Some content I wrote this week
Joey Porter Jr. on what he needs to improve in a return to college.
A young left tackle is trying to build on some valuable experience in seizing a starting role.
A transfer has ‘shined’ on the offensive line early in practice.
Some content I listened to this week
The 082k22 playlist is live.
Mentioned that I was listening to more Wilco after watching The Bear last month, and I woke up with “ELT” stuck in my head Saturday.
It’s almost(?) Virgo season.
I’m still listening to Emotional Creature by Beach Bunny and Household Name by Momma more than anything.
Some content I read this week
On the book front, I finished Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr and enjoyed it, even if I wasn’t sure it would get to the finish line at various points. Also continued to work my way through Sloane Crosley and finished I Was Told There’d Be Cake. Her essays have been light reading that’s funny but communicates its moral or message well. It’s been fun.
Alicia Kennedy on San Juan.
Alyssa Harad on living in the ending in the Kenyon Review.
Kevin Morby in conversation with Aquarium Drunkard.
Kirsh on “the breathtaking cynicism of Deshaun Watson and the Browns” in Slate.
Caitlin Schneider on letting television shows end in Discourse Blog.
Speaking of The Bear, this Wrong Life Review piece on authenticity was thought-provoking:
I think people approach art today with a deep narcissism: The more of themselves they recognize on the screen, the better the work is. There is no longer any value in the abstractness of art. Fact-checking dominates everything today.
Kelsey McKinney on how the money is in the wrong places in Defector.
Louisa Thomas on the retirement of Serena Williams in The New Yorker.
Kevin Morby in conversation with Rachel Kushner.
Another Morby interview in The Creative Independent.
Loved these photos of people reading in New York in The New York Times.
Helena Fitzgerald on August and everything after in Griefbacon.
Some other content I saw or thought about this week
I was in the Pacific Northwest last weekend, which begged the question: Why do I live anywhere else?
The Ryland Blackinton interview on How Long Gone from last month was good.
Thank you for reading the 92nd edition of Content Nausea. It will get better. Thank you, and see you soon.
Press corps
Give us something to wake up for
—D.G.