Virtual Fools

Last night’s “The Office” was fantastic. In it, Dwight is going to take Temp Ryan on his first sales call. In one of the interview moments, Dwight hypothetically if Ryan is going to end up “slacker-loser-wise-ass like Jim” or is “he going to join the Dwight Army of Campions”? Dwight Army of Champions! It’s got a good ring to it. A good enough ring, in fact, that I’d love to turn it into Facebook group and get all those hardcore Office fans out there to be a champion with me.

So I signed into Facebook to create the group. But before getting ahead of myself, I took the lessons I’ve learned from being an active member on Digg and thought that maybe I should check to see if somebody else had created a similar group.

36. Thirty-six people had created ‘Dwight Army of Champions’ groups. Most of them were named exactly the same and a few threw in a “the” or “Schrute” into the mix. I would have been number thirty-seven (tee-hee). This wouldn’t have been a problem if there were thirty-six groups at thirty-six school… but these were all “global groups” that anybody can join.

In literally less than 24 hours 36 people latched onto three words in an episode of a television show and thought to create a Facebook group about it. That’s pretty impressive. It does, however, prove the necessity of a “duplicate” prevention feature on Facebook. The current term “global group” doesn’t mean much when you get thirty-six mostly-regionally-isolated groups about the same thing.

So, while I do want to be part of Dwight’s entourage (*Entourage!*), I dare not pledge allegience to a single sect of such a permiating ideal. And I dare not make the thirty-seventh group even though the numerical consequences are comedic. I’m a better man than that; I’m a Champion.