2 min read

Tweets are the windows to the soul

I don’t know if you know this, but there’s this thing called “Twitter” and some people use it. It has connected the world and become one of the biggest tools in social media. It’s all very meta.

Currently, there’s six players on the Thunder roster using Twitter – Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, James Harden, Thabo Sefolosha, Byron Mullens and Nick Collison. We know a few things about each player from following their accounts.

  • Nick Collison is extremely witty and funny. He also likes nice weather.
  • Kevin Durant likes movies, enjoys chatting with fans and at times, actually acts his age.
  • Russell Westbrook does not enjoy proper English, nor complete sentences.
  • James Harden tweets at extremely random times and tweets extremely random things.
  • I think Byron Mullens forgot about his.
  • Thabo’s is… let’s just say boring.

But what could we really know about each player from their Twitter? Is there more to it? Well, there’s this little website called TweetPsych and it does just that – it analyzes tweets and tells you what they really mean. Let’s investigate.

  • Kevin Durant scored above average in the categories of agreement (meaning he’s an agreeable person), cognitive processes (talks a lot about learning, thinking, etc.), past tense (he talks in the past tense), sports, positive feelings, leisure and positive emotions among a few others. He also displayed a high use of social behavior, positive affect and affection.
  • Nick Collison really tends to use past tense, talks about education, space and sports a lot, discusses sensations and also tweets about positive feelings and work. He has a lot of temporal references, uses a lot of abstract thought, prefers visual sensations and was evidently aggressive. Sadly, it didn’t have any info on if he secretly hates Oklahoma.
  • Russell Westbrook tweets most about time (bout 2 hit da gym yaaaaaaalll), sports, space, positive emotions, sleep and cognitive processes. Most of his posts are concrete and involve temporal references, constructive behaviors and oral fixations. Is this making sense to anyone? No? Let’s carry on.
  • Cardboard Jim Traber tweets about space, positive emotions, uses a lot of certainty (surprise) and speaks in future tense. He scored high in audio sensations and also taste sensations. Hi-oh! Oh, oh, one more thing: Cardboard Jim’s tweets most match American Idol’s Adam Lambert(a real liberal hippy yardbird if I may so myself) in the “people that think like you” category.
  • Thabo Sefolosha tweets about time, sports and positive emotions. He uses present tense (which seems rare) and is “inhib,” whatever that means. He also scored very high in social behaviors. I think that is definitely spot on.
  • Me. I tweet most about time, numbers, sports, cognitive processes and I use past tense. I also engage in a lot of abstract thought, temporal references, social behavior and display some amount of anxiety. Yep, pretty much nailed me there.
  • James Harden and Byron Mullens don’t have enough tweets to be psycho-analyzed.

Is any of this important? Probably not. But with more athletes Twittering, it’s at least remotely interesting. I just wish the creator of TweetPsych use terms I could understand. What exactly does “inhib” mean again?