John Cena Reveals He's Randomly Following People on Twitter for a Good Reason

There are some famous and influential people who understand that their status as a public figure means there are inevitably a lot of people who look up to them. This is something that WWE Superstar John Cena fully comprehends. The man holds the record for most Make-A-Wish Foundation appearances (in May of 2020 he clocked in at 650) and his latest quest for positivity has a lot Twitter users asking: "Why does John Cena follow me?"

In a recent discussion with Sports Illustrated, John divulged why he's elected to randomly follow fans of his on the popular social media platform, and his reasoning for doing so reverberates with his long-standing online branding.

If you've followed John, then you'll notice he is a big fan of posting inspirational quotes that directly tie into his personal philosophies.

So why is he following "random" folks on Twitter? Well, as it turns out, the people he's clicking "Follow" on aren't really that random. John acknowledges that Twitter can be a cesspool at times (my word, not his), with tons of people expressing negative opinions that are geared towards merely castigating others instead of attempting to make a situation better.

John told SI: "I know that social media is most times a difficult, argumentative, and negative place, Twitter especially, because of the ability to hide behind the text. So what can I do? Send out good stuff, be honest with everybody, and then follow people that relate to the good stuff." 

He continued, "If I follow someone who is a 'negative' person on Twitter—their profile reads sarcastic, skeptic—and they like my tweets? They're not who they say they are, or they have a chance to change. If the experiment fails, so be it, but it's just me trying to use my presence to tip the balance."

If you check John's followers to following ratio, it's much higher than that of most other high-profile celebrities on Twitter: As of this writing, he has some 12.8 million followers and is following back 236,000+ people. For comparison, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is following 303 people on Twitter and has some 15.1 million followers, and many other celebrities/public figures have similar ratios.

John Cena hasn't been on the main WWE roster for a bit as he's secured himself some other roles outside of the ring. He's currently filming the HBO Max series Peacemaker, which follows his Suicide Squad character. He also has Project X-Traction and Vacation Friends in post-production, along with the ninth Fast and Furious film where he plays Dominic Toretto's younger brother Jakob.

He's also the host of Wipeout and still regularly makes WWE appearances, not to mention he's penned some popular self-help/improvement books that are gaining steam. While, presumably are companion pieces to his positive social media presence.

If you're wondering who Peacemaker is, he's basically a deranged version of Captain America. According to Suicide Squad 2 director James Gunn, the character is "a guy who believes in peace at any cost, no matter how many people he needs to kill along the way."

John's "perverted" improvisation skills in the new Suicide Squad flick have been praised by co-star Joel Kinnaman:

"I think we were all kind of blown away by John Cena on that movie. From day one he started improvising, he went on these comedic rants. It was 98 percent unusable because it was so sexually perverted and wrong and so bizarre, bizarre things that came out of that man's sick, sick brain. It looks like he was born out of an American flag, he is just so ridiculously American. He is a brilliant comedian, I tried to learn from him but that's impossible because the things that came out of his face can come out of his perverted brain."

We'll have to wait until August 6, 2021 to see if any of the stuff actually makes it to camera. In any event, it seems like John had a lot of fun with the character. Are you excited to check the movie out?