REGINA — Alex Taylor says her grandfather, whom she affectionately calls poppa, looked so cute wearing his Saskatchewan Roughriders gear that she had to take his picture.
That’s when he asked if the photo would go viral — not really knowing what that meant.
"I didn’t know it at the time, but he was just talking about viral in the literal definition, like, ‘Do you think it’ll spread?’ He didn’t realize that viral is a pop culture term now with the internet," Taylor said Tuesday.
"He had no idea, and I thought he knew exactly what it meant because he knows what Twitter is."
Taylor’s grandfather, Bob White, wore a long-sleeve Rider shirt and a green hat with a big "S" on the front when he was at her house on Saturday to watch his beloved Canadian Football League team play.
White, 86, has been a fan since quarterback Glenn Dobbs played in the early 1950s.
Taylor tweeted the picture and wrote: "My grandpa asked if I thought this picture of him in his Rider gear would go viral. Kinda want to try make it happen ↕sskroughriders."
After that, she said, "it just blew up."
"All of a sudden so many people were sharing it," she said.
"That’s Rider nation for you."
As of Tuesday morning, the photo had been retweeted more than 9,000 times and liked nearly 13,000 times.
White was surprised, too, said Taylor.
"He was like, ‘That’s amazing,’ but he just couldn’t really wrap his head around the idea — the fact that 13,000 people had seen him. He was, like, ‘Just me, a grandpa?"’
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