Get Mark Verified

AN OPEN LETTER TO TWITTER:

I am writing you today to talk about why I deserve to be verified on your internet website, Twitter. In addition to being an expert internet user, I am also widely considered to be the premiere humorist for the fast-growing sport of triathlon, which is in the Olympics, which is the pinnacle of sport.

I know that curling is also in the Olympics somehow, but in the big picture I don’t think that necessarily detracts from the accomplishments of triathletes. Crossfit isn’t in yet, but I think that is probably because they haven’t decided which dangerous exercises to put on the roulette wheel.

Anyway, back to me. Triathlon is a good sport and it is on tv sometimes. Many of the people they show on tv follow me and are also verified on your website, Twitter. Here are some athletes and personalities that follow me that are also verified:

*Stop following me please

Allow me to do some of your research for you, as it is my specialty. Included in these verified accounts are professional triathletes, Olympians, Tour De France Champions*, The Bachelor, and NASCAR drivers. A veritable who’s who of triathletes, both professional and amateur. One is also a shitty race registration company that has fooled me not once, but twice into signing up for their premium membership. Pretty clever!

In addition to these followers, I have also been blocked or unfollowed by these accounts:

Who am I? Why should I be verified by Twitter?

Let’s start by going over your criteria for verification:

Highly sought users in music, acting, fashion, government, politics, religion, journalism, media, sports, business and other key interest areas.

I guess that is basically it. I’m no lawyer but I think triathlon falls under “sport” (not according to my hockey player friend, Todd, who thinks that sport involves fighting over balls or hard black things that dudes chase around and try to score with).

So this begs the questions, am I a highly sought user in the sport of triathlon? Let’s try some statistical analysis:

Delly Carr / ITU :: 2011 Dextro Energy Triathlon - ITU World Championship Series Yokohama

Delly Carr / ITU :: 2011 Dextro Energy Triathlon – ITU World Championship Series Yokohama

Statistical Analysis

Let me select a random, well known, professional triathlete who is verified on your internet website, Twitter. Let’s say…Simon Whitfield. Simon Whitfield is a two time Olympian, taking Gold in the 2000 Olympics and Silver in the 2008 Olympiad and is a highly respected and well- liked individual (paddleboard obsession notwithstanding). Simon has 32.5k followers. He is also Canadian. How is that germane? It’s not, just a neat little factoid for you.

Simon has enough followers that you can round up or down his follower count to the hundredth place-  a pretty big deal. Now let’s look at mine: I have 3,755 at the time of this writing. Not bad, not great, but there are verified accounts with less.

Your main criteria is that one is a “highly sought user in their area,” which in our case is of course, triathlon. Let me prove to you that I am a “highly sought Twitter user.”

Let’s go through Simon’s last ten tweets (not retweets, not replies. Actual tweets). And select 3 of the most engaged of those:

Simon had a total of 7 retweets and 8 favorites for those 3 tweets, for a total of 15 engagements.

Now let us take a look at 3 of the most engaged of my last ten tweets:

At the time of this writing there were 44 retweets and 140 favorites, for a total of 184 engagements.

Simon has 32,500 followers. I have 3,755. Only 0.015% of his followers are engaging with his tweets on Twitter compared to 1.6% of mine, or to put it simply, I am interfacing with followers 106x more than Simon is.

What does this mean? RELEVANCE.

I have been interviewed by Outside Magazine (article never published, true story), allegedly helped incur a $2.7M fine by the IRS, blocked by Olympians, retweeted by celebrities, and fav’d by famous peoples kids while they had their iPads. Arguably the world’s best triathlon coach, Brett Sutton once said this about me: “Eh he okay i no problem whatvr no fake person.” This is before he employed an intern to write his tweets for him.

hangout_snapshot_3Last but not least, I am a part of the hottest triathlon based podcast, TRS Radio, which has quickly gone from obscurity to almost a quarter of a million downloads in less than 44 episodes. Please follow the link to the website and find my embedded Twitter follow button, which is something you require.

Some may say I am the Gary Dell’Abate to Ben Hobbs’ Howard Stern, and you may be correct in saying so, but please make note in your Blackberry or Trapper Keeper that Gary is verified on Twitter.

So as you see, I feel that I fit all of the criteria, and more. I have a 5k PR of 20:07(3x), so please factor that into your decision. I have seen professional triathletes naked (I have roomed with Kevin Collington and former pro Aaron Webb), which I think verifies me on that merit alone (I have good excuses for why I didn’t run faster for those races and if you want to know, just DM me).

Anyway, just let me know when I can get my blue checkmark tattoo.

 

IMPORTANT NOTE FROM PUBLISHER:

Mark is also a famous bicycle designer. If you are interested in purchasing this bike and will agree to verify Mark, we can offer you 10% off this or any Falco design. Please contact us for more information. (Note: This deal also applies to everyone else who contacts TRS.)

 

 

About the Author

Dark Mark is an internet user, humorist and iconoclast. He appears regularly on TRS Radio and is head writer for the show.