Students make a Twitter re-tweet bet with their Algebra teacher

Two weeks ago, Algebra teacher Patrick Frasier made a bargain with his student, sophomore James Sullivan. If he got 10,000 re-tweets on a picture, he wouldn’t have to take the final exam.

“I’ve seen it on Twitter and it’s happened before, so I thought there might be a chance,” Sullivan said. “At first it went really well, and we got maybe 100 or 200 re-tweets per hour. After a day, we had about 1700, and it slowly started to die down. We’re at 1800 right now.”

The picture features Sullivan shaking Frasier’s hand to seal the deal. The picture was posted by Frasier’s teacher aide, Lois Durant.

“I didn’t ever think that that was actually a possibility,” Frasier said. “It was like one of those bets when someone bets you a million dollars, and you say okay and shake on it.”

Picture gets almost 2000 re-tweets

While no one expected the picture to get many re-tweets, Frasier watched his class see the re-tweet count climb.

“I remember someone being like, ‘It’s already at 30!’” Frasier said. “To be super-excited about 30 and then they look back and it’s at 1700 is really funny. It definitely was a highlight of my year because I like that class a lot, and they’re a lot of fun. One of the things that makes teaching nice is you have nice stories, and you kind of collect these things through your career. That will be probably one of the best memories, watching that all go down in the last 15 minutes of class and then everyone’s reaction the next day.”

The picture spread rapidly, even to other parts of the world, Sullivan said.

“It even caught on in Venezuela,” Frasier said. “Ten middle aged Venezuelan men re-tweeted it. It was really weird. But all of my friends got a really big kick out of it, taking screen shots of stupid things, and they showed it to some of my other friends and they all think it’s ridiculous. Even some other students around McCallum that I have no idea who they are will be like ‘Hey, I saw your Twitter.’”

Frasier said even the students had reached their re-tweet goal, he probably would still have to give a final.

“Realistically, I’d probably have some sort of consolation prize,” he said. “Like, ‘You have to take the final, but here’s pizza’ or something.”

Sullivan said while they most likely won’t make it, it was fun for the class while it lasted.

“I thought it was hilarious because I look horrible in that picture,” Frasier said. “I’m not even smiling, I look like a grumpy goose, which is what I was going for. It was just really awkward and really funny.”