Members of the university community who have embraced the next big social media phenomenon may have noticed a recent blip in the Twitterverse. Earlier this month, someone claiming to be university President Wallace Loh acquired a Twitter account, seemingly filling a major communication gap between university students and their fearless leader.
Loh, for the duration of his tenure as university president, has been largely isolated from the general student population. But upon his first tweet, students and school departments alike embraced his arrival. Then, suddenly, Loh vanished as quickly as he had appeared, leaving his followers with numerous questions: Was it a hoax — as the sudden disappearance suggested? And if so, who was behind it?
Was it a professor?
Was it a student?
Was it a Diamondback columnist?
This question may never be answered, but one thing is definitely certain: College Park just isn’t the same without Loh’s Twitter feed. It’s like Gotham without its White Knight (or Dark Knight, whichever fits).
“Lohfeed” as I shall term it, was launched just in time for April Fool’s Day. During the five days before its mysterious demise, the feed gained over 150 followers. From calling a fraternity’s tweet about playing Frisbee a “TFM” (Total Frat Move), to frequent ROFLs, to #Lohs, to the strange phrase “#winningsafely,” to telling a student activist that he did not care about workers’ rights, his tweets became increasingly eccentric.
And it wasn’t just students buying into Lohfeed — far from it.
On April 3, the business school tweeted about a speech the real Loh was in the middle of delivering, linking to Lohfeed. Moreover, the business school even began following every single Twitter account that Lohfeed was following, a move that Lohfeed responded to by promptly calling out the school for sucking up.
Even at least one of the students running The Diamondback were duped — the editor in chief, for instance, happily informed a number of her employees that Loh had tweeted his approval of the Photoshopped (and wildly inappropriate) image of himself that had appeared on the fake front page of the April Fools edition of The Diamondback.
But then, disaster struck. On the morning of April 5, several university Twitter feeds announced that the person behind Lohfeed was actually not Loh himself. Apparently, there was an impostor in their midst. It was then shut down entirely by Twitter itself, which felt that the account was in violation — because plenty of people still believed it was real.
Of course it wasn’t. It was run by an impostor, an individual who I encourage Loh to immediately expel from this university. I also once again encourage him to give me a Terrapin lapel pin because it definitely wasn’t me.
And if I may make one more suggestion, it would be to take note of this ordeal. For it did not seem to matter what Lohfeed was tweeting about — from #Lohs to Under Armour, from the Amethyst Initiative to “Lohverloads.” His following seemed to grow at lightning speed. Why? Why did everyone want to follow Loh? Why is it that President Barack Obama trails only Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and Britney Spears in Twitter followers?
It’s because people want to connect with their leaders. Students may have enjoyed Lohfeed’s outrageous banter, but the vast majority clicked his follow button because they really wanted to engage with our president directly. @UofMaryland, @UMDNews, or @SmithSchool won’t cut it. Followers imply a leader. Where’s ours?
Greg Nasif is a senior history major. He can be reached at nasif at umdbk dot com.
