How I predicted the rise of Twitter, barely used it, and amassed 35,000 followers

2023-03-02

Once in a while, I make a stellar prediction. When I joined Twitter in December 2006, it seemed incredibly dumb to me. I knew it wasn’t for me and that’s still true today. Twitter had so few users at the time that I was able to grab @cricket as a username. But I made this bold prediction:

I’ll never use it, but Twitter is going to be a huge hit.
Me in December 2006, to @iTod.

Here was my contribution over the years: 15 tweets in 17 years, and I earned a coveted 16 hearts.

I moved three years ago and never updated my hometown. That’s how dedicated I am.

Based on some digging around, Twitter supposedly had about 50,000 users when I joined. Since then, it grew. A bit.

I didn’t predict that it would reach peak coolness nine years later. Source: Statista and other possibly unreliable sources.

The unexpected part was that three years later, I had amassed hundreds of followers. What? I didn’t recognise anyone on the list. But, I did notice that most of my followers had Indian-sounding names and it clicked. So, I tweeted about it.

I’m presuming you already figured it out, smart readers.

A year later, I thought I’d freak my followers out a bit by making shit up.

But no one reacted to it, and I kept gaining followers. I just don’t really get Twitter. As of today, I have more than 35,000 followers.

I also didn’t predict that random people would email me every few months, wanting to buy my username. My highest offer so far has been $10,000. But I’ve come to enjoy not using my account at all.

So that’s the story of how I predicted the rise of Twitter, barely used it, and amassed a hundred thousand followers.