By Taylor Clewell
Ah Twitter, the social media on which profound thoughts and random updates unite in 140 characters or less.
Many teens take to twitter to express their ideas and beliefs to the general public. Others, however, simply use it as an outlet for creativity and fun. The latter is what a group of sophomore girls did when they began the 12th Woman Twitter account following the third football game of the season.
“We were just joking about it-me and my friends-because we were like ‘why is there a 12th Man, women should be in it too’” said Sophomore Sophie Roach, who was part of the group that began the account.
“We were like ‘wouldn’t that be really funny if someone did that?’ Then we were like ‘huh we should do that’” Roach said.
But as the news of the newly formed 12th Woman account spread, the girls received some mixed reactions.
“Some of them [the reactions] were really funny,” Roach said. “…like people would direct message us and be like ‘who is this I want to be in this this is so funny’”
Others, however, seemed to be more confused than amused.
“I actually don’t know how it got started…it was just weird because none of 12th Man knew what it was ‘cause it kinda just popped up, it was just kinda random” said Senior and 12th Man member DJ Thogerson.
But as is in most cases, confusion quickly turned to curiosity. “Once the 12th Man kinda heard about it they were trying to find out who it was.” recalled Sophomore Tori Hunter, who was also part of the group.
“Like all the 12th Man were trying to figure out who it was…” Thogerson said. “I forgot who it was, but we tweeted her and we were like ‘you’ve been exposed’, kinda just joking around that we found out it was her.”
But whether it was the prospect of being exposed or a fear of incurring the wrath of upperclassmen, the mystery tweeter failed to respond.
“Pretty much no girls acted negatively towards it… it was mostly just the guys who were in the 12th Man. I think they were just mad because they thought we were making fun of them or we like took their special thing” Roach said.
That “special thing” has become somewhat of a fixture at West’s varsity football games.
Twelfth Man is “basically…a group that just comes together and comes up with ideas for games and just has fun with it.” said Thogerson.
The group brings an amount of life to the games. “If you go to a football game and it’s super quiet it’s not fun, if noone’s cheering it’s not fun. I mean it doesn’t matter what it is…if no one was cheering it wouldn’t be fun.” Thogerson said.
But there is not really a reason that girls can’t assist the 12th Man in pumping up the crowd. “We’ve always had the senior girls who sit in the front row and help us cheer but we’ve never really had a 12th woman…” said Thogerson. “It’d be different but someone could do it.”
Some believe that West should allow girls to join twelfth man, or have them organize a group on their own.
“I think that there should be…girls alongside the 12th Man because we wanna do it too… it would be fun,” said Hunter.
“I don’t think we necessarily need…[a twelfth woman]…the twelfth men do a really good job at getting everyone all hyped and stuff, but I think it would be fun just to have more people to get everyone all excited…” Roach added.
But through all the confusion and investigation, the girls do not regret forming the account and putting the iea in people’s heads. “It was fun,”” said Hunter. “I’d do it again”.
