Ah. You're talking about the tool tips on, say, the fill color or line color
or text color icon, then.
They all start with "follow" because any object you apply that color to will
follow the color assigned to whatever is mentioned.
So. You create an autoshape on your slide. You select the 3rd color swatch.
That autoshape's color has now been set to follow whatever color you've
assigned to shadows in the slide color scheme. If you choose the 5th swatch,
the autoshape's color will be set to follow whatever color you've assigned
to "fills" in the slide color scheme. And so on.
Although now I see that you're just wondering why the tool tip says "follow
xyz." I guess that's MS shorthand for "this color will change according to
the color you've set in your color scheme." The link I provided earlier
should help explain. I have an example there that shows what happens to
objects -- how they change predictably -- when you've assigned color scheme
colors (aka "follow this color") to them and then apply a different color
scheme to the slides.