Well, not exactly. Some of these followers were no surprise: fellow Hawks coaches, swimmers, swim-parents, swimming-centered Twitter feeds like @SwimUtopia and a friend or two living in another part of the world.
But there were those odd followers: an English language specialist (were my tweets that poorly written?), a grist mill in Oregon, a global hotel company, a porn star, a single gay man in New York City looking for love, and several egg-shaped empty boxes of people whom I’ve never heard of and certainly couldn’t recognize. Still, they had all been kind enough to follow me, so I followed them (with the exception of the porn star).
If following all of the swim-tweets weren’t enough to keep me busy, I quickly became an inspirational-quote junkie. And there are so many Twitter quotes to follow! There are “Sports Quotes” and “Dalai Lama” quotes and “Ancient Proverbs” and “Women of History” quotes, “The Reverend T. D. Jakes” and on and on. I became so overinspired that, instead of running up the mountain or saving narwhals, I became paralyzed by which quotes to believe: “Do I live each moment like it’s my last? Or do I put in the hard work because it’s not the destination but the journey that counts?”
When you have Muhammad Ali and Mother Theresa quotes in your head at the same time, you’re going to end up on your hands and knees one way or the other, praying for the world to heal or praying that you won’t get knocked down this round. I was all sweaty from my Twitter-quote tizzy, and I hadn’t even left the chair!
I finally got up the gumption to reveal how completely ignorant I was toward social media by asking Marissa whose initials were “RT,” which showed up in more than 75 percent of the tweets that I received. It wasn’t Ryan Lochte, nor Ricky Berens – or Rowdy Gaines or Ryan Seacrest, for that matter! Who was RT? “Oh, that’s a re-tweet,” said Marissa.
RT? A re-tweet! Damn, did I feel dumb and liberated all at once. Of course that’s what it stood for! People were RTing things that they’d been sent that they found salient or compelling, or wanted to garner support for a sick child, a encourage a swimathon for autism, a cancer tournament and a million other reasons. Got it!
After practice I called her again. “What does #hashtag mean?” I asked. Many of these tweets had the symbol # with words that followed. “It’s to emphasize something or to start a trend,” I was told.
Okay. Getting it, slowly but surely; and really it was just out of curiosity, because I myself wasn’t going to tweet. No! I was just going to sit back and enjoy the chorus of my favorite swimmers on their quest to the Olympic trials and hopefully London. #Hogwash.
But I couldn’t resist. Once those tweets come in from those whom you revere – from swimming, music, art and dance, and from actors, talk-show hosts and any other million cultures and subcultures – it’s hard not to repond! Why? Because it feels like they’re talking directly to you! That’s the illusion (or delusion). I was not strong enough to resist the Twitter Kool-Aid.
And you know what? It just makes me happy when someone I admire tweets back and says “thank you!” or answers a question or re-tweets some supportive thing that I’ve said. The world is full of critics, and it’s just fun to be a supporter in 160 characters or less.
“Garrett Weber-Gale responded to one of my tweets!” I said to Marissa. “I’m so rooting for him at trials!”
“Amanda Beard re-tweeted you?” said our just-turned-13-year-old son Seamus. “Yes,” I said proudly. “That’s so cool, mom! But you have to stop tweeting and driving.” Ouch. How right he was.
No more reading tweets while driving, but soon it wasn’t enough to follow just the swimmers whom I admire. I began following all of my international swimming favorites. As their tweets would come over the wire in Spanish, French, Japanese, Italian or Korean, I was dying to understand what they were saying. I was so frustrated that I couldn’t read it. When I received a tweet from decorated Olympic French swimmer Laure Manadou linking to an article in La Provence, my husband kindly stepped in and explained in French that all I had to do was “copy and paste and go to Google Translate.”
He was right. It worked. With that cyber-knowledge, I could understand what my favorite Japanese backstroker was tweeting and I could respond back in Japanese. This is too cool!
What’s really thrilling is just to have the privilege of listening to what these athletes and coaches are doing, thinking and saying as they prepare for the biggest meet of their lives. They spend anywhere from four to six hours of grueling training a day, only to have that once-every-four-years shot of representing their country. I’m nervous just thinking about it!.
My Twittering may fade out, but that’s unlikely. If I want to watch each race free of interruptions I may have to lock myself into a bedroom or a hotel room during the Olympic trials with no Wi-Fi or outside connections to the world. “No way!” Seamus tells me. “We’re coming to the hotel room with you!”
Deal. But it will have to be a Twitter-free zone!
