Few athletes have scaled the boundaries of gymnastics quite like 2012 Olympic Champion Mckayla Maroney. She has cemented herself as a pop culture figure via her Internet presence, and in the land of social media she holds as much clout as the house that hands out king size candy bars on Halloween. Barring the unthinkable, Maroney will be a member of Team USA’s delegation at the upcoming World Championships, so there’s no better time to consider the five things that can be learned from her online persona.

1. Maroney truly is a queen of social media. She’s active on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Vine, Keek and probably many others that sound more like names from Greek mythology than names of social media channels. And no matter how busy her schedule gets, she always finds time to keep her followers in the loop. With almost-daily Instagram posts and more-than-daily tweets, you’d think she was getting paid.

2. If you thought her Amanar was good, you should see her selfies. Maroney has mastered the art of capturing an angled image of herself while displaying a good arm-to-face ratio and the perfect amount of squint. By posting as many selfies as she does, she conveys her confidence — but hey, confidence has gotten her pretty far.

3. Maroney’s fame shows how big an impact social media has on society. While Olympic-champion gymnasts usually garner some media attention shortly after the Games, Maroney has truly become a household name, and that includes the White House. She has over 640,000 followers on Instagram, nearly a half million on Twitter and over 250,000 on Keek. You’d be hard-pressed to find 250,000 people who know what Keek is, let alone those who follow Maroney.

4. Her little sister — adorable. But that brother. Boy, is he annoying. 

5. Perhaps her most important lesson, Maroney shows that she’s able to laugh at herself. When her “not impressed” face took to the Internet faster than Shawn Johnson took to dancing with a star, she hardly showed any spite. Rather, she has embraced the popularity and occasionally posts illustrations and pictures of her doing the pose. Either that, or she’s just regularly unimpressed and wants the world to know. In the end, this tactic has only benefitted herself and her brand. 

Post on, Mckayla. You’re posing shoulder-to-shoulder with world leaders, teaching valuable lessons and broadening the sport of gymnastics’ reach one Instagram selfy (and Tweet and Vine and Facebook post and Keek) at a time.

Related:
McKayla Maroney discusses her Social Media obseession in this interview
Watch McKayla Maroney Videos
View McKayla Maroney Photos