Facebook Talk

In case you live under a rock (in which case, we need to talk, because I’ve always wondered how somebody could actually live beneath a rock), then you probably already know that late night funny man Stephen Colbert is running for President in his (and mine!) home state of South Carolina. What you might now know is that his Facebook group dedicated to his all-but-failed campaign is what some people estimate as being the fastest growing Facebook group. Ever. In just nine days, it peaked over 1,000,000 members. In five more days, it topped 1.3 million and as I write this now, it currently stands at 1,355,014 members. Not too shabby of a following for a “fake” campaign.

To put this into perspective, legitimate candidate Barack Obama might be one of the Democratic parties front runners for the nomination, yet his official Facebook group has only managed to snag 400,000 members in nine months. Critics often complain that young people in the 18-30 age group rarely vote enough, yet Stephen Colbert and Facebook actually stood a chance at changing that - even if they were only voting for a comedian. Sadly, Colbert won’t find himself on the South Carolina ballot, as they recently elected 13-3 not to allow him to appear on their ballot.

While this may be an unfortunate turn of events, there still is hope in the form of Colbert’s massive Facebook group. There’s already a large contingent of people organizing an e-mail drive to the South Carolina Democratic Party to protest their recent decision and my hunch is that if Colbert actually talks about this group on his TV show sometime soon, there could be even more half-shenanigans half-serious efforts displayed from the group in an effort to keep him in the race.

It’s times like these that make it quite fun to be on Facebook. Colbert in ‘08!