You are Being Followed

Twitter. Tweet. You are following people and being followed. I've never been very comfortable with this terminology. What user testing decided that telling someone they are "being followed" is a desirable or comfortable way of being? Last time I checked, being followed had some pretty negative connotations. 

Today I "tweeted" about biomimicry and material culture as I was preparing to teach a class. Within a minute, I was being "followed" by someone I've never met, simply, it seems, due to the use of the word "biomimicry". 

Out of curiousity, I tweeted "socrates, somnabulate, zygomorphic, jeroboam". So far no follows. Damn, now those are some interesting topics!