John’s Pick for Best Celeb Twitter User: Shaquille O’Neal

I’ve always been a fan of Shaquille O’Neal. Besides being a phenomenal basketball player for the last 16 years in the NBA, Shaq has always been an entertaining personality on and off the court. The man’s list of sound bites alone deserve its very own webpage and his knack of entertaining millions has been a bright spot in the NBA. Case in point his recent dance-fu at the 2009 NBA All Star Game. The man is simply a renaissance man; he’s parlayed his skills off the court to being a rapper, a sheriff, an actor, being in his own video game, and having his own reality show. It would make sense that a man of such many hats would need a vehicle to express his thoughts to his fans all around the world. So it made perfect sense that Shaq has very own Twitter describing his daily thoughts to his followers of fans, which last I checked was at 203,126. And yeah other celebrities may have their own Twitter account, but come on its Shaq! Submitted for your approval, the top reasons why Shaquille O’Neal is the best celebrity Twitterer on the Internet

1. Shaquille O’Neal really Twitters: In response to an imposter posing as the real Shaquille O’Neal, Shaq took it in his best interest to sign up for his own Twitter account. His Twitter URL: www.twitter.com/the_real_shaq. If that’s not as authentic as I gets I’m not sure what is. Still need proof, the man does his own Twit pics! Yeah I think that’s Shaq sleeping.
2. You can clearly tell that Shaq wants to write more than the 141 characters given: Messages such as: “Did anyone like the movie push, I like the main characther I’m a fan of his, what’s his name ,lol” or “I think I just saw brittney spears, I’m not sure tho,” deserve the full story treatment but such is the case with Twitter. We may never know why Shaq is a big fan of Chris Evans (he’s the main character btw) or if that really was Britney Spears that he saw.
3. He’s not afraid to actually meet his own fans: Don’t believe me, then read this following message from Shaq: “To all twitterers , if u c me n public come say hi, we r not the same we r from twitteronia, we connect.” To have such a huge celebrity just invite his fans to say hello to him in public is shocking, especially in this celebrity obsessed society that we live in. But hey if you’re seven feet tall and your cool level is at an 11 (i.e. Shaq) I can only imagine that he’d be okay with having fans approach him at a mall or even at a restaurant…oh yeah that happened! Behold the power of Twitter!
4. Shaq responds to all his followers: One page alone has more responses than actually daily tweets and just in case you don’t love him already read this response: “@sikass I dnt hate any body bro I got 200 thousand followers I wish I cud respond to everybody.”
5. Shaq is up to date with everything: From talking about President Barack Obama, the movie Push and to sports that he himself is not professionally involved with (in reference to baseball: Ok i admit it i at performance enhancing frosted flakes 2 yrs ago, lol), O’Neal is up to date with everything. I imagine we’ll probably see some tweets about the stimulus package and Watchmen pretty soon.
6. Shaq doesn’t care if he makes spelling errors: The man needs to drop 45 points on his opponents every night so a few spelling errors are understandable. Plus he twitters off his phone and for me I always have spelling errors when I text. We all can’t be superman.
7. He may very well be the catalyst for more celebrities to join Twitter: The sudden attention that O’Neal has received from his Twitter adventures can only increase the awareness of other sports athletes or any celebrity in general to sign up, connect and talk to their fans. As of now Shaq has been trying to get his fellow Phoenix Sun teammate Steve Nash (“Im tryn talk steve nash into joining twitter”) to sign up. So far it hasn’t worked.
8. Shaq is willing to share everything: Whether he’s talking about the Suns’ struggles this season (Whatthe hell is wrong wit da suns) or willing to delve into his past “Some rumors are planted for a reaction, i dnt react, i act , have u seen kazaam, i kno terrible, lol,” Shaq is refreshingly honest.
9. You’re guaranteed a laugh every time you read his Twitter: Here are two back to back messages from Shaq: “I had a nokia e90 but it fell n da toilet, now I have a shaqberry lol, I’m a toilet twitterer” and “I hate leprekons lol.” No explanation necessary.
10. Only he can get away in twittering with capitals: A big man such as Shaq only needs to use uppercase.

Over the 16 years that Shaquille O’Neal has been an ambassador for the NBA he’s garnered a few nicknames, from Shaq Diesel to The Big Aristotle to now being called the Big Shaqtus. Judging from his popularity alone from Twitter, he may very well have to call himself the Big Twitterer now.

Whose Your Favorite Twitter Celeb?
This whole week we’re going to be featuring OUR writers’ favorite celebrity Twitter users. Then all of the Twitter Celebs will be taken to the Twitter Celebrity Tourney! There you’ll decide as the Twitter celebs go head to head to battle for the (completely worthless) prize of who is the ultimate Twitter celebrity!

To nominate your favorite celeb click here.

Nominations are due March 8th!