When news broke that Manti Te'o's dead girlfriend wasn't real, news organizations including CNN and  ESPN hopped on the story and tried to get to the bottom of it.

While Te'o and the Notre Dame Athletic Department maintain that he was the victim of a 'Catfish' type hoax , others aren't so hopeful. 

"Te’o actually thought the romance, which, like everything these days, started online, was for real," A  Chicago Sun-Times writer argues. "And when he found out he’d been goofed on, played like a high school geek who just received a 36-month swirlie — plus, he had played along with his own lies — he grasped for dignity and killed off the chick ."

The term 'Catfish' was popularized by a movie and subsequent TV show, which explores online relationships and shows them to be fraud a majority of the time.

Do you think Te'o was Catfished? Or was he involved the whole time? Tell us in the comments and tell us if you've ever been duped like this.