Behind the ‘Squirrels Of CMU’ Twitter Account

Story by Clarissa Kell

Squirrels at Central Michigan University are the unofficial mascots of the campus. Squirrels are so popular to the students and faculty members here at CMU that there is a Twitter account dedicated to the little creatures that also call this university home.

The Twitter account, @squirrels_CMU, is an account for the squirrels to tweet their messages to their so-called “larg frends.” This account is run by a Lake Orion sophomore that is studying broadcasting here at CMU.

She said the reason she created the account was to bring happiness to others.

“I was walking down campus one day and I saw a squirrel and I was like, wouldn’t it be funny if it had a Twitter.” Then the twitter account we all know and love, @squirrels_CMU was born.

The admin to the account wanted to remain anonymous, not because she is actively trying to keep her identity a secret but because she said she finds it funny hearing people talking about the account in front of her, especially in classes.

She said the point of the tweets are to make it look like an actual squirrel here on CMU’s campus is using a keyboard on a phone and is tweeting, which is why words are miss spelled and there are extra symbols.

She said she got inspiration from other accounts she follows that are dedicated to animals, like an account that is a birds’ rights activist and the account has a “bird” tweeting, which leads to things being misspelled. She said another account she got inspiration from was Thoughts of Dog twitter, where there are a lot of misspellings and over use of punctuation.

“At first it was just kind of funny, but know that I see people actually like it and they seem to enjoy it, they interact with the account. I like to think it makes people happy.”

CMU students interact with the account by sending her photos of squirrels or @ the account with a photo/video of squirrels on campus. She said she thinks it is cute when other people on campus are out there taking photos of squirrels.

The account was created in November 2017 and currently has 687 followers. With her major being broadcasting, she said social media is talked about a lot in her classes. She said if this account continues to grow she is definitely using it on her resume.

Recently, she created a Snapchat for Squirrels of CMU to bring the lovable creatures to the people not on twitter.

She said her hope for the account is for it to grow and then when she graduates, finding someone else to carry on the Squirrels Of CMU account.