47-year-old Hall of Famer Shaquille O'Neal shared a hilarious story on how he discovered Twitter back in the day. As it turns out, the legendary big man came across the social media platform through a weird twist of fate:
“I found out about Twitter by accident,” O’Neal told Zach Harper of The Athletic.
Shaq would go on and relay how it all started when a reporter allegedly misquoted him on a trivial matter that now seems irrelevant. However, when O'Neal confronted the reporter about where he got his information from, this was when Shaq realized that someone was impersonating him on Twitter:
The reporter told O’Neal that this misquote had come from Twitter. Shaq didn’t know what that was. He didn’t know where this quote had come from. An impostor was potentially getting in the way of Shaq the player and Shaq the brand. In November 2008, Shaq snatched his online identity and persona back. @THE_REAL_SHAQ was large and in charge, much like he portrays in real life.
And the rest, as they say, is history. Nowadays, O'Neal is the proud owner of a very popular Twitter account with close to 15 millions followers. It's a far cry from the hundreds of millions who follow the likes of Kevin Durant and LeBron James, but it definitely isn't bad for an “old man.” O'Neal now goes by a more straightforward handle, @SHAQ, and remains active on the highly-popular social media platform with the occasional tweet.
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