You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
Ridiculous Facebook Posts.
I have noticed something recently regarding Facebook.
Serious subjects appear to attract less hits than mindless posts.
This is hardly scientific. I have as much quantitative data as area 51 conspiracy theorists.
Facebook has become a tired social contraption. It’s an antiquated mechanism in the eyes of my children. They have moved on, instagram and other social networks the likes of which I will only find out about years from now.
If dad is on FB, my kids want nothing to do with it. That’d be like sitting with your parents in the movie theater when you can sit with your friends somewhere else pretending to be cool.
So why am I still on FB? Mostly because my station wants me to promote my stories. It’s a sound philosophy by and large. Maybe someone will see the story about the ATM theft and then want to watch it on TV. Maybe they will stick around and watch the commercials after. Maybe we can all get paid.
But lately I have noticed that serious doesn’t always generate interest.
I posted a serious subject on a officer involved shooting that generates only a tepid response. Meanwhile a picture of a fungus launches like a viral space shuttle.
Saturday I look out my window and see the rains have created a super mushroom on my lawn. It looks like a beach umbrella, wide and tall. So I post the picture to Facebook. I rarely do something this insouciant, but I figure, I have thousands of followers, maybe they will find this fun.
In less than 30 seconds 18 people see the post. That’s like NSA fast. 3 people have all ready clicked the Like button as if I sent them a special invitation to like the mushroom post at 8:18 am Saturday morning. 3 likes in 30 seconds. I didn’t scratch my ass that fast.
It was a little frightening, like they are in the room with me, looking over my shoulder.
What are these people doing all day? Are they hovering on Facebook just waiting for someone to communicate to them about fungus issues?
Every post about a dog, a rainbow, a fairy princess… They pounce like Augustus Gloop on an open chocolate bar.
In 24 hours I have had over 600 views, 25 likes and 2 comments on my mushroom post. One person tried to out-mushroom me with a picture of her own mushroom with a Smurf on top.
“I’ll see your mushroom post and raise you a mushroom post topped with a smurf.”
It’s like high stakes social poker.
As they once said in the Breakfast Club. “Demented and sad, but social”
I say this because I also posted a FB story about an officer involved shooting. The issues were much more than a surfing Smurf.
Life vs Death. Accusations of police brutality. There were many issues that the FB audience could have commented on.
That story netted 359 views and a few comments made by people wishing the shooting was a story about a cat playing piano.
Recently I posted a road rage incident where four young men opened fire on a pick up truck striking the cab and an empty car seat. That story garned 434 views. Not bad.
Here’s where I am going with this. I posted a simple photo of a police officer using a smart phone while driving in his squad car. Was he texting and driving? Was his wife telling him to pick up the laundry after work?
Who knows. I simply posted the picture and told the FB audience to talk amongst themselves.
13,000 views. Hundreds of comments.
I took a picture of a person holding her cigarette out the window of Mercedes. I knew she was going to toss it. Almost all you smokers do. It pisses me off and you should be made to lick an ash tray as punishment.
So I post this picture of the car and simply say that it ticks me off.
1,500 plus views, almost instantly.
Perhaps my nucleus of followers is different than yours. Perhaps your followers like politics more than recipes, stories of hope more than pictures of big boobs, posts about social relevance more than dogs playing in the snow.
I’m not saying any of the above is bad. It’s just an observation that FB is an interesting social thermometer.
Perhaps it reinforces the drive through mentality of this country. Fast and easy is better than hard and complicated.
Commenting on a mushroom is mindless and fun while commenting on Obama Care is deep and political.
One will gain you 25 views, the other 13,000.
Life’s Crazy™