A Twitter bio can say a lot about a person.
In Rishab Jain’s case, it reads: "If you love me, I'm always in your heart. If you hate me, I'm always on your mind."
As a recent semifinalist in the Jeopardy! College Championship, the Georgia Institute of Technology freshman knows a thing or two about being on haters’ minds. He appeared on national television twice during the competition, which included 15 students representing different campuses.
The 18-year-old took the opportunity “to look up my name on Twitter and see what people thought of me.”
“I was taken aback at first to see some people name calling and saying borderline racist comments to some other contestants of color,” the materials science and engineering student told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
People took to Twitter to take issue with Jain’s forcefulness on the buzzer and his volume, things he attributes to the technical rules of the game and “the adrenaline of being on such a big stage.”
Instead of ignoring the comments, Jain chose to retweet the “funniest criticisms” of himself in order to show his friends and fellow jeopardy players that “the many armchair contestants will always pick apart” the players.
He shared about a dozen tweets, with people calling him weird, or “way too shouty,” or saying he “needs to chill.”
Jain, who comes from Memphis, Tennessee and really loves Taco Bell, made it to the semifinals by winning $20,100 in an early round. But he was defeated by another contestant with a Georgia tie.
Dhruv Gaur is a Brown University freshman from Gainesville, a city about an hour northeast of Atlanta. The pair became fast friends during the filming of the show.
Some of the internet jabs were also targeted at Gaur.
Jain said his “sense of humor, resilience and sarcasm” comes from his friends, family and others, such as his international affairs professor, Vince Pedicino.
“(Pedicino) inspired me to pay no mind to the haters, since he is arguably one of the most sarcastic yet informed people I’ve known,” Jain said.
Thankfully, there were some supportive (or mostly supportive) messages as well. Others loved his tactic of retweeting the negative Nancies instead of letting them bring him down.
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