During the “blackout” at the Super Bowl last night, the Twitter community was having a field day. As with any major event, users on the social media platform were constantly trying to one-up each other in hopes of a retweet. The jokes were flowing, many of them directed at connecting Manti Te’o’s fake girlfriend to the lights going off in New Orleans.
Te’o actually deleted his account during the blackout, which took things to another level.
Did Manti Te’o just delete his Twitter account? He has a hell of a PR team. #SB47 #SuperBowl47
— Matthew Schwerha (@MatthewSchwerha) February 4, 2013
Manti Te’o delete his Twitter account during the blackout. That’s not a joke. Seriously. It’s deleted.
— EJMaroun (@ejmaroun) February 4, 2013
I think we made Manti Te’o delete his twitter
— Kony Parker (@TheRealAdrianMo) February 4, 2013
Buzzfeed captured a tweet that Te’o sent out just after the halftime show. We’re pretty sure this was his last one.
Buzzfeed
The question becomes whether Te’o and his PR team had planned to delete his account for a while now and chose to do so during another major event (Super Bowl) to serve as a distraction, or whether he got frustrated with all of the jokes being flung his way. Some were pretty rough.
Reports just surfacing now that Ray Lewis murdered Manti Te’o’s girlfriend during the blackout, but this has yet to be substantiated.
— Dr Secret AgentPharm (@UndercoverPharm) February 4, 2013
Manti Te’o’s gf made an appearance at the SB!!! Unfortunately it was during the blackout tho so no one got a good look at her…
— Rondo (@mikevp01) February 4, 2013
Planned blackout so Manti Te’o could make an appearance and say he brought his gf but you couldn’t see her because the power was out #gottem
— Eric Frender (@Basedjew52) February 4, 2013
Manti Te’o’s girlfriend performed during the blackout
— Atlanta Sports Guy (@Atlantasportguy) February 4, 2013
Admittedly, in Te’o’s position, I’d have deleted my Twitter account a long, long time ago to avoid all of the negativity. The assumption is that if this was planned, his team extracted all the information it needed from his account before shutting it down.
If it wasn’t planned, part of you has to feel for the guy. He’s been through an awful month and can’t even watch the Super Bowl in peace.
