In the 21st century, society relies on technology and social networks for a variety of reasons; one of which includes the promotion of adverse feelings towards certain iconic individuals. What was designed as a network to connect with friends, Facebook also serves as one of the main hosts of ‘hate groups’ on the web. A hate group could be defined as any organized group that advocates hostility to a certain individual, or a specific group of individuals, and the amount of hate groups present on Facebook’s Network is excruciatingly high in number. Two examples of the aforementioned groups are ‘I hate Justin Bieber’ and ‘I hate Sarah Palin’, both sharing many similar aspects, yet still very diverse from the other. The Bieber hate group has a total of 89,592 followers whereas the Palin hate group has 1,269 followers, both numbers growing steadily each day. Majority of the Bieber followers are male and generally in the late teens/early adult range. In contrast to the Bieber hate group, Palin followers do not necessarily fall under gender specifications, but political; most of these followers are democrats who hold opposite beliefs of Palin. The mission of Bieber’s group is solely “To Bring Justin Down” in contrast to Palin’s group, which does not have a defined objective, but compares her to an “American Idiot”.
Both groups share the similarity of their followers posting hostile comments toward the objected celebrity. There is ample amount of ‘hate language’ used on both pages. Bieber followers include words such as “gay” and “queer” in their posts and Palin followers use words like “whore”, “idiot” and “stupid”. The followers of each hate group have altered the icons names, and refer to them as “Justin Barbie” and “Sarah Pain” in their various posts. However, one major difference between the two pages is that on the Bieber page there is a sufficient amount of comments which support and stick up for the young pop star (mostly posted by teenage girls), where positive comments about Palin are next to none.
Both groups are responsive and interactive to their followers in different ways. The Bieber hate group has a discussion board where followers can post their opinions on topics like what they hate about Justin Bieber, and which songs of his they despise. These discussion boards generally yield comments such as “I hate Justin Bieber, he sounds like Hannah Montana” and “He’s so stupid. He’s suppose to be 15, then why does he sound like he’s 6?” The Palin hate group does not have any discussion topics, but has frequent status updates either encouraging followers to invite as many people as possible to join the group or bashing Sarah Palin. The most recent status update was posted November 2 and reads, “Green Day’s inspiration for ‘American Idiot’ was Sarah Palin.”
Both the “I hate Justin Bieber” and the “I hate Sarah Palin” hate groups lack any type of educational value whatsoever; the main focus of each is to merely mockingly bash the person of choice. Both groups are based solely off of biased opinions, however, even though there is no didactic evidence in the two groups, it does not seem to upset any of the fans, nor deter the fan group from growing. This in itself is one of the most powerful strengths of both groups: the sole fact that people continue to follow, even with lack of factual proof as to why hating these celebrities is necessary. Another strong point of both the Bieber group and the Palin group are that each has avid followers that leave insights and opinions, thus keeping both pages alive and active. The main weakness that both pages share is the irrefutable fact that neither group has a valid claim or point.
All in all, “I hate Justin Bieber” has a stronger presence on Facebook than “I hate Sarah Palin” due to a variety of reasons. For the most part, more fans interact with the owner of the page, and leave much more opinionated comments. It is also very evident that its presence is more renowned in the Facebook world due to the amount of fans that like the page, versus how many fans like the Palin page. However, if the Palin hate group page offered more interactive opportunities for its followers, such as leading discussion topics like the Bieber group, it would most likely be more liked and followed. Even though both groups have a sufficient amount of followers, perhaps if they both had an actual arguable point or claim, they would be even more successful. In conclusion, both groups are host to a number of people who hold hostilities toward Bieber or Palin, and with the aid of this social network, can easily voice their adverse opinions.
