For four days in September, Onward State was dead.

Not fully dead, but pretty damn dead.

If not for Onward State’s 2023 Person of the Year, Onward State might still be dead. Who knows?

Confused? Let me set the scene. Hi, my name is Keeley, and I’m Onward State’s managing editor. In early September, I was updating Onward State’s social media accounts to ensure the blog was maximizing its engagement and reach. One of the tasks I completed to do this was updating the birthday of Onward State across its accounts. Onward State is 15 years old, but the students who run the blog every day are between 18 and 22.

In order to take advantage of some Twitter X capabilities, users typically need to be 21. Not a thought crossed my mind as I logged into the settings of Onward State’s X to update it with my birthday since I’m 21.

What happened next changed everything.

Immediately as I clicked “done” after entering my birthdate, I received a message informing me the account was suspended until X could confirm my age and identity. Quickly, panic mode set in. I followed every step to confirm my identity and contact X Support to get Onward State’s X back up and running as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, though, X Support hasn’t existed since the reign of Elon Musk began.

Then, true terror set in. Penn State had a football game in five days, so Onward State’s X, which has been active since 2008 and has over 166,000 followers, needed to be reinstated before then at the absolute latest. With no true resource to contact for support at X, I took the advice of two phenomenal friends and began to reach out to Penn State alumni employed at X on LinkedIn and other incredible folks in Happy Valley like Mike Poorman and Maribeth Roman Schmidt.

After dozens of LinkedIn cold calls, one response hit. Insert Onward State’s 2023 Person of the Year.

I got a LinkedIn message back from Ellis Driscoll, an engineer at X and 2018 Penn State graduate. He explained that Onward State’s X was flagged as an account potentially under 13 years old, and it simply needed to be verified by X Support to be back in business. Driscoll expedited Onward State’s support ticket, and I began to sigh a breath of relief.

About three hours later, the account was restored, largely thanks to Driscoll’s speedy support request, and there was a light at the end of the tunnel… until I realized no one was logged into the account to be the recipient of my two-factor authentication request. It appeared, in Onward State’s 15-year X existence, that at least one person had always been logged into the account at all times. After my birthday blunder, everyone got knocked out and was unable to verify the login.

Driscoll and I LinkedIn messaged into the early morning hours, trying to troubleshoot the backend error. The following day, Driscoll continued to problem-solve for Onward State, not because it was his job but because he just wanted to help out his alma mater, and he located the X employee who was capable of overriding all of the barriers restricting Onward State’s account from returning. That person, though, was based in Ireland.

We planned to sit tight until the following day for a solution when folks in Ireland awoke, but about 30 minutes after Driscoll requested the help of the Irish, the person had already solved the problem late into the night.

The power of “We Are” was instilled into me like never before, and Driscoll shared that the person who made it happen from Ireland was a Nittany Lion.

“The user should be all set,” the person said. “Let me know if they need anything else. Also let @onwardstate know I said #WEARE.”

The night of September 6, Onward State’s X had been down for four days and resurrected as a 123-year-old (to prevent any login or birthday error like that from ever happening again), all from the help of two unbelievable Penn Staters.

Driscoll spent four days problem-solving with me to restore Onward State’s main form of communication. He helped a hysterical student out for no benefit of his own and reinstated the account before I reached my five-day, “Hey, so this is embarrassing” announcement to the blog’s 360,000 followers across platforms.

Hopefully, this long-winded story reminds everyone of the power of Penn State, the coverage Onward State provides (and the sad hole it leaves in Penn State student media when it temporarily dies), and the gratitude all of Onward State and I have for our Person of the Year: Ellis Driscoll. Also, don’t change the birthday on your X account.

Thank you, Ellis. You saved the blog.