Over 15 years ago, Kevin Durant logged into Twitter and sent his first tweet. From that point on, he was hooked. He fired off 39 tweets over the next 24 hours. Eleven days into his social media awakening, he declared that "Twitter is better than goin to da club."
So much has changed over those past 15 years for all of us. Genuine interactions between players and fans on the platform now known as X are far less common. Most of the accounts that Durant interacted with have since been deleted, including the first one he ever replied to. Below his first tweet are several jibberish NFT replies, serving as evidence of what the site has devolved into.
Despite all of the drastic changes that have taken place to the platform, one thing has stayed the same: Durant is still on there, and he's still tweeting like it's 2009.
He hops into the replies of strangers. He checks the app enough to find tweets he's not tagged in. And he's an active part of what's left of the NBA Twitter community. He's sent more tweets (25,753) than he's had shot attempts (20,911) since making an account on the site.
Why is Durant still holding strong on Twitter when so many are fleeing? I went through all of his tweets on X over the span of two months to try and find an answer.
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What I learned from two months of Kevin Durant tweets
In the last two months, Durant has worn plenty of hats. He's been a philosopher, a comedian, an uplifter and, most of all, an instigator.
"I be trollin 100% of the time, don’t take me serious please," he warned in November.
Durant can be legitimately hilarious on X. He's come up with lines that would never pass the PR filter of most players. (His peak came in 2011 when he sent his legendary "Scarlett johanneson I will drink ur bath water" and "Erykah badu thicker than a kindergarten pencil" tweets.)
While he's toned it in town at age 36, he's still quick with the comebacks. Take his response to a Nets fan account that rejoiced at how many draft picks the team got after eventually trading him.
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Like many of us addicts, Durant likes to tweet first thing in the morning. Twenty of the 30 tweets that Durant sent over the past month came between 6 and 9 a.m. Phoenix time.
A handful of his tweets are messages of positivity. Several are promotional. By far, the majority of his tweets are meant to stir the pot.
Offer Durant praise, and he'll probably ignore you. One fan asked why he rarely replied to compliments.
"Too much love will cripple u," Durant warned.
You're much more likely to receive a response from Durant if you tweet something dumb. His best dunks this season may have come off the court.
"Sometimes I wake up and look at @TheNBACentel comments just to truly see how many dummies come online thinking that they have high iq. Good morning," Durant tweeted one early morning before Suns training camp.
