Below is an excerpt from a friend on my Facebook stream.
Why are there so many stupid fan pages on Facebook? Become a fan of “picking your nose with an unprotected finger then wiping your boogers on the Kleenex”. Become a fan of “Sometimes I cry in the shower”. Become a fan of “fear of not being a fan of enough Fanpages on Facebook”. I don’t care for this!
I smiled and pondered this for a while.
It’s funny because, like many things these days, we have become complacent about so much. Becoming a Fan on Facebook is simply a click of a button. Adding a new friend to your Twitter takes place in less than a second. We want things to be instant; we do not want to wait.
The things that come to those who wait will be the scraggly junk left by those who got there first (via @todayslaugh)
But have we become numb in our culture to what some of our actions are and what they may mean? Do we know what we are becoming a part of? Do we click on a fan page or add a new friend to our Twitter account and don’t even think about it? Deciding who your friends would be at school used to be a big-ticket item. Saying you are a fan of something could mean you may have to defend what it stands for.
I can remember back when I was a kid; I was an avid reader of the comic book The Beano. And you could become a member of the Dennis the Menace and Gnasher (his dog) fan club; what an honour to be part of the ‘in crowd’. So at the ripe old age of eight, I cut out the coupons from the comic book, wrote my details in my atrocious handwriting, stuck it in an envelope, went to the post office and paid for a stamp out of my pocket money and waited. And waited, and waited for what seemed like an eternity. It was about three weeks. And then the excitement of finally becoming a faithful Dennis the Menace fan club member arrived. It had a badge I could proudly display on my chest to say I was a true fan. It also came with secret passcodes for what I can’t remember. And also the o’ such an import membership card that I could place in my non-existent wallet, which I could have pulled out and proudly displayed at any time as proof to all my friends that I was a fan; I was part of a club.
Due to social media strategies, I am again part of a Group MOvember. This club is a strange collection of moustache-growing guys(BROs) and their girls worldwide who are raising money for awareness of prostate cancer. I changed my avatar on my Facebook and Twitter pages to proudly display that I am part of this group I am a fan of. But people let me tell you, all this stuff is work; I had to grow a moustache, and for a guy like me, this is an effort. But for the first time in a long while, I am proud to say I am part of a club. I am a fan, and an effort is going to raise money for a great cause.
Seth Godin’s book Tribes touched on the subject of belonging and what it means to our culture and how the Internet is changing how we interact with people.
Now the Internet has eliminated the barriers of geography, cost, and time. All those blogs and social networking sites are helping existing tribes get more prominent and enabling new tribes to be born-groups of 10 or 10 million who care about their iPhones, a political campaign, or a new way to fight global warming.
So what group or organization do you belong to? What fan pages are on your Facebook? Are you a big Sports fan, Celebrity fan or Music fan? Can you stand before a crowd and be proud of your Cultural Tribe? Do you read a profile before you add a new friend? Or do you click cause well, your friend sent you a link?
We would love to hear your comments, no matter how short or long.