Twitter is a funny thing. It's been used to tell college students about laundry room availability, to tell stories (one agonizing tweet at a time), and to target former teammates (more or less).
But for IU sophomores Tony Adragna and Zach Litzelswope, they've got another idea for the social networking service: use it to create chants for the student section at Assembly Hall.
The two sophomores started the Hysterical Hoosiers group this week, and the two-day-old twitter profile is already close to 500 followers.
Adragna said the goal is to cater chants for each opponent. Adragna said he friended all the Northwestern players - IU's next opponent - to find clever things to chant at them.
The Twitter feed (and facebook page) will be used to gather and publicize chant ideas. Before each game, the Hysterical Hoosiers will publish the new chants on Twitter so students can learn about the chants from the stands (they are working on getting hard copies out at the games, as well).
"Our goal which we said from the start is that we want to make Assembly Hall the most hostile place to play in the country," Adragna said. "We think some of our (current) chants are outdated. We want to personalize the chants for each team."
Litzelswope said they have many ideas, including in-game tweets to students during timeouts with chant ideas.
Right now, though, they are just trying to get the word out. If enough students know about the organized chants, the word will spread. That's their hope.
"There are almost 18,000 seats in Assembly Hall," they recently tweeted. "We will not be satisfied until we have 18,000 followers! Tell your friends Hoosiers!"
Adragna and Litzelswope plan to collaborate with the current student section organization, the Crimson Guard. Saturday's contest against Northwestern will be a "test run" before rival Purdue comes to town Wednesday.
The two also wanted to emphasize the chants will be on the up-and-up.
"It'll be tailored for college students but nothing will be derogatory," Adragna said.
