But then a strange thing happened.
My conversational material was feeling a bit dry and repetitive, so I thought I'd peek at some other organization's Pages for inspiration. I looked at a few schools and wasn't getting anything, so I turned to universities. Why not start at the top? I looked at Harvard. What is prestigious, esteemed Harvard posting about, and how are their fans responding? So I looked at Harvard.
My eyes couldn't process what was happening. The trouble is, you can't tell what Harvard is posting. Because there are dozens and dozens of gibberish posts from dozens and dozens of the 250,000+ people who "like" Harvard on Facebook. I felt like I had stumbled on to some dark part of the internet. Not the dark parts like 4chan (don't look it up) or any other infamously nefarious internet community where users invent memes ranging from funny to heinous. Something totally unexpected, like when you Google something and accidentally click on the first search result: an article on thecnnnews.com (or one of its many sister sites with word-for-word identical content) ... which is just a Wordpress blog from either India or Pakistan that reports on everything from the Discovery launch to bus service interruptions in Seattle... all in terrible, terrible English. Is this someone's way of practicing English (and repeating it on a dozen other URLs), or is my computer going to catch something? I'd led my naive child into the seedy part of town and stood frozen in shock, unsure of how to mend whatever damage had already been done.
That's what Harvard's Facebook Page wall is like. Don't get me wrong, Harvard's putting out great content... news about speakers, giving Shakira the 2011 Artist of the Year Award, all fascinating stuff. But in between, you get gems like these, from the armpit of the internet. I can classify the comments, and their users, into several major categories.
- The Prospective Students - obviously, the majority of the comments are like this one.
- The Knowledge-Seekers - you've got a tough question, why not ask the smart people?
- The Activists - this one is referring to this effort to bring back a TV show cancelled 7 years ago
- The Entrepreneurs - tapping into the wealth of the Harvard community for new customers.
thank you..whatever your feelings, whatever your words, whatever your imagine,, tell me. i make it into clothes. with HotWax . the only one around the world . :) C'mon.. visit this place. :)Yesterday at 3:45am
And that's just the tip of the iceberg. What's more, several of the above posts were "liked" and commented on by other fans in similarly nonsensical fashions. If you want to take your own expedition into madness, try visiting Coca-Cola's page.
That's not to say that there aren't companies whose pages adhere to the rules of logic and nature. Retailers like Home Depot use their wall to advertise new products, services and sales. Users ask relevant questions and receive helpful responses - but probably because they have a dedicated social media staffer keeping it clean.
I just don't understand what possesses someone to visit a Facebook page and leave these kinds of comments. I'm reminded of comedian Paul F. Tompkins' bit about magazine's Letters to the Editor from people who just wanted to compliment the last issue's cover.
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But, folks, I suppose that's the beauty of living in a world with so many different kinds of people. You just never know what you're gonna get.
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