NASCAR’s Dale Earnhardt Jr . joined the world of Twitter three and a half months ago. Earnhardt Jr.’s first tweet was a selfie of him holding his Harley J. Earl trophy from his win at the Daytona 500, according to USA Today . It wasn’t long before Earnhardt Jr. realized how much he enjoys Twitter and the social media.
Since his first selfie, Earnhardt Jr. has posted over 2600 tweets that consist of his thoughts of the day, funny quips, contests, and comments on events. The list goes on.
Fans of Dale Earnhardt Jr . have been thrilled to see him join the ranks of social media since he avoided it for many years. USA Today says Earnhardt Jr. was concerned about the negativity of social media and the “lack of tone.” Dale evidently changed his tune and decided to give it a whirl. Since joining Twitter, Earnhardt Jr. has brought on a huge “following” total of over 682,000, per Sporting News .
Earnhardt Jr. has been enjoying tweeting and interacting with his fans. “Some of the stuff the haters say is the funniest stuff,” Earnhardt told Sporting News after his victory Sunday at Pocono Raceway. “It’s really funny. The real short ones, like ‘you suck,’ those are the best ones.”
The amount of support from his Twitter followers is quite an encouragement to Earnhardt Jr. on a daily basis. He admits that it is a great feeling to know he has the support of his fans 100 percent of the time.
Earnhardt Jr . admitted, “Just to send out a tweet in the morning, like, ‘Hey, man, I’m ready to race, these are my thoughts,’ and everybody goes, ‘Hell yeah, go have a good day.’ That’s the kind of stuff you want to hear. You want people behind you and pushing you and motivating you. It does a lot of positive things for me.”
So, what kind of effect do the negative tweets have on NASCAR’s racing idol Earnhardt Jr.? USA Today says that Dale doesn’t put a lot of stock into the naysayers and their hateful comments.
“That used to bother me when I was younger, but when you get old you don’t really care anymore about those kind of things,” said Earnhardt, who will turn 40 in October. “I have a lot more fun actually kind of reading that stuff on Twitter than I do a typical normal joke.”
“Some of the stuff the haters say is the funniest stuff. So I kind of get off on that,” Earnhardt Jr. explained. “But I don’t feel like I’ve got anything to prove. I’ve been given another opportunity working with (crew chief) Steve (Letarte) and these last five years or so have been a blessing, and I feel like I’ve made a good account of myself, and I think we’ve got more we can do.” Earnhardt fans will agree on that.
So, what does Dale Earnhardt Jr. do when someone tweets hateful remarks to him on Twitter? “I just favorite them and block them. It’s so much fun.”
Photo Credit: Zimbio.com