As texts scrolls up the Facebook newsfeed, people see their friends have become fans of things and they too click "Become a Fan" and thus fandom spreads virally. I am often surprised to see the things people become fans of and the number of fans these things have. A friend of mine noted that Facebook is improperly weighted to newer phenomena (I would suppose due to the age of the crowd). For instance, simply looking at Facebook "fan" numbers, one would think Coldplay is a dozen times more talented, influential, and historically important (with its 359,281 fans as of this writing) than Beethoven (with his mere 27,946 fans). But we must remember that this is merely a popularity contest with a skewed slice of the population as it's voting participants (75% of Facebook users are 18-35 years old). All this indicates is that a Facebook dwelling Netizen is 12 times more likely to like Coldplay (and want to brag about it) than Beethoven.The other day I saw that one of my friends had become a fan of Amazon.com. I enjoy
Amazon with it's excellent selection, fair pricing, and inexpensive, expedient shipping (as an Amazon Prime member I enjoy free 2-day shipping and $3.99 overnight shipping). (As far as online retailers go, my love for Amazon is only approached by my feelings for NewEgg.) Anyway, I immediately clicked "Become a Fan" to join said cult, though in afterthought I considered it a bit odd. With 3,384 fans, Amazon.com is 9 times less popular than Beethoven, but that's not the point. 3383 people mindlessly clicked on a link ("Sure, I like Amazon too..."), but who was that first person, to create a group on Facebook to worship the online merchant? Was it a zealous cyber-shopper? Or perhaps instead an Amazon employee? Bands promote themselves through MySpace, and pornstars shamelessly self-promote on the FB, so why wouldn't an Online Store pimp it self via Facebook? Perhaps I am just jealous that Amazon is thirty one and a third times more popular than I.On the bright side, this Facebook fan situation finally proves something that has been hotly contested for a long time: John Lennon was right. The Beatles are more popular than Jesus.
2 comments:
Those "found photos" in your link looked pretty fake. I'm surprised people fell for that. Slightly surprised.
They look like the last shots a Project Runway contestant takes before she gets kicked off.
Just goes to show what happens when people think with their penises.
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