Can these Facebook statistics get more fans than Megan Fox?
With the recent explosion of pages like Can this pickle get more fans than Nickleback? (It can), Can this poodle wearing a tinfoil hat get more fans than Glenn Beck? (Not yet), and Can this squirrel get more fans than Barack Obama? (Not even close), I thought it might prove interesting to chart how many Facebook fans some popular pages actually have, and see what it tells us about Facebook, fandom, and ourselves
Much of what I found was unsurprising. Facebook games take two of the top three spots–Texas Hold’em Poker with more than 13 million fans and Mafia Wars with just shy of 10 million–and Facebook itself is in sixth place with about 7.6 million fans. As someone with very little patience for Facebook games junking up my news feed, I’m at least gratified to see that Not Playing Farmville has a healthy 2 million fans.
Among pages representing actual human beings, the King of Pop is clearly also the king of Facebook with over 11 million fans. President and social media powerhouse Barack Obama takes second place with 7.8 million fans. But the third most popular person on Facebook is–Vin Diesel? Apparently, the star of screen gems like The Pacifier has only about 125,000 fewer fans than the Commander-in-chief. Kind of makes you wonder. The most popular woman on Facebook is Hollywood mega-hottie Megan Fox. She may not have Meryl Streep‘s acting chops, but her 6 million fans outnumber the 16-time Oscar nominee’s 300,000 by about 20:1. On an unrelated note, I am beginning a screenplay for XXX vs. Transformers. I have a feeling it might be the most popular movie ever.
Starbucks tops the chart in terms of consumer brands with about 6 million fans. Coca-Cola ranks high too at 5 million. Apparently Facebook loves beverages. Sadly my drink of choice, Ice Cold Beer, doesn’t even break 1 million fans. Perhaps this has something to do with the large proportion of Facebookers who are still under 21.
Indeed, tween tastes do seem to rule when it comes to Facebook fandom. The Twilight Saga is far and away the top-ranked literary work with 5 million fans. That’s almost three times as popular as The Bible. Though, Twilight was a book and a movie, so perhaps it’s not quite a fair comparison. At least the Bible still outranks Playboy.
It seems Sex and Drugs are no-nos on Facebook since neither even has a page, but Rock and Roll lives on. With 2.1 million fans, the Jonas Brothers are bigger than The Beatles–but just barely. Elvis lags farther behind. I will say, as a resident of Brooklyn, where hipness is measured in direct proportion to obscurity, I’m rather proud that the most successful band I admit to being a fan of–Death Cab for Cutie–has only 300,000 fans.
On the whole, I’m not sure whether these numbers should make me feel optimistic about the future of the Facebook generation. They’re obviously sleep-deprived, given the popularity of Staying up Late and I ? Sleep. Perhaps it’s all that Starbucks caffeine. The fact that Getting Paid has more fans than No Homework seems to be a good sign for tomorrow’s workforce. But these kids may just be planning to spend their days watching YouTube and Texting, counting on Finding Money In Your Pocket.
At least we can all agree on the value of Hugs. And Not Being on Fire.
