Shaquille O’Neal Has a Twitter Account and is Friends With Justin Bieber

Shaquille O’Neal not only knows how to use a computer, but also appears to have figured out the sequence of events required for using Twitter and, among other actions, retweeting and replying to tweets. His Twitter account was recently brought to my attention by this Gawker post that analyzes and gives reason to @THE_REAL_SHAQ’s recent tirade in which he challenged some sportscaster guy to a boxing match, or something. Anyways, his tweets seem written by a total dumbass. Look at this tweet:

5:30 PM August 3, 2010
im da big retweeter, lol RT @the_real_shaq da official hashtag for my sho is gonna be #shaqvs. were gettin hashty tonite

Shaq ‘coyly’ retweeted himself, I guess. Seems like he was grinning while he tweeted this, and after clicking “Tweet,” said “Gettin’ hashy tonight” to his wife. Her facial expression probably quickly destroyed the ‘buzz’ he felt from such mischievous behavior, and he probably had to repeat himself a number of times, in a number of variations on the original phrase, like “got an official Shaq hashtag for my Twitter” and “I’m making a hashtag for my Twitter, I retweeted that I made it. To my Twitter fans,” or something, and after it was apparent that his wife thought he was being a total dumbass, said “nevermind, you don’t understand.” Both then probably dismissed each other with disdain.

Apparently Shaq became upset when his hashtag didn’t ‘pick up’ after he ‘unveiled’ it to his Twitter legions. Here’s a tweet from the same day, three hours earlier, which additionally points to Shaq having at least a primitive, if not unconscious understanding of what it means to ‘go viral’:

2:26 PM August 3, 2010
u kiddin? u have no shot. wheres da hashty, btw? c’mon people! RT @primeauA88 @THE_REAL_SHAQ ice cream eating! #shaqvs

I dunno. I guess he’s used the term ‘hashtag’ so much in the past that it’s now become adaptive and more efficient to have adopted a shorter colloquialism.

1:58 PM August 3, 2010
da official hashtag for my sho is gonna be #shaqvs. were gettin hashty tonite

Oh. I get it now. Shaq got a TV show. How surprising. This explains his drive to create a viral Shaq hashtag, which lasted a seemingly uninterrupted five hours on the day of his TV show’s debut. You’d think he would be doing… something else.

There are other fascinating aspects to @THE_REAL_SHAQ. Look, he likes to assert dominance over life by combining his name with stuff:

6:12 PM August 3, 2010
they woudnt let me race my shaqillac #shaqvs

5:47 PM August 3, 2010
shmaqtalk begins in 15 mins on abc 9/8c http://bit.ly/ShmaqTalk #shaqvs

3:09 PM August 3, 2010
@ajarenas tic shaq toe, lol. good 1

2:58 PM August 3, 2010
u mean roshaqbo. im da champ of that 2 RT @settheray2brian @THE_REAL_SHAQ roshambo #shaqvs

2:01 PM July 23, 2010
havin da mid day munchies? indroducin shaqsnacks fr @dotfitworldwide dem r gooooood http://bit.ly/ShaqSnack

Pretty creative. But the long-time basketball star really flexes his creative muscle in the following endearing, or weird, tweets:

8:21 PM July 29, 2010
@an_weezy yur right yur mom said the same thing when I pulled the covers back and farted n her face, lmao

12:08 AM July 26, 2010
I was at a justin bieber concert he had dat mug jumpin 50 thousand people dat kids a star, and I got his autograph thanks justin

9:15 PM July 12, 2010
“Love is the only reality

11:40 PM June 17, 2010
@THE_REAL_SHAQ Congratulations Kobe, u deserve it. U played great. Enjoy it man enjoy it. I know what ur sayin “Shaq how my ass taste”

Hard for me to understand any motivation for tweeting to yourself, to someone else, but whatever, Shaq is friends with Justin Bieber. Not sure why this fact in itself seems like somewhat of a spectacle to me.

12:11 PM August 3, 2010
i got ur back big bieber RT @justinbieber just did press conference w/ big fella @the_real_shaq. Shaq held it down & did the talking 4 me

This tweet was so compelling that it was retweeted by ‘100+’ people (which probably means like 1 million because Twitter doesn’t count retweets after 100). Including me, in the form of this post. Which seems sad.

Here’s a slightly disturbing video of Justin Bieber ‘running away’ from some fans in which Bieber ultimately appears as both a parody of himself and a total dumbass.

I guess Shaq and Big Bieber are going to have a dance off on Shaq’s TV show soon.

Gonna go get hashty now.