Should I try to limit myself to 12 posts a day? Or will more than 12 posts make me this popular? So many likes!

Social Media Scholar Maia Berlow went into the uncharted territory of discovering the allure behind becoming a Facebook celeb. You know ’em, you love ’em, or you love to hate ’em (but really secretly love them because they make the group so much better).

Every grade has them. Those kids that post incessantly on the admitted students page before everyone gets to school. Everyone knows their names, everyone knows their profile pictures, but does anyone really know those Facebook famous students? I decided to learn more about some of the Columbia Class of 2018 Facebook fames and why they post so darn much. All the students interviewed had been named “Facebook Famous” by multiple sources, and not surprisingly, not one of the seven declined to be interviewed (although one ended up getting out of it).  It could be expected that they would be pretty full of themselves, and the interviews to be very odd, but they all proved to be fascinating and enthusiastic.

All of them posted for the first time in their Facebook group out of the excitement that came from getting into Columbia. “It was like shaking up a Coke bottle and just having it burst out everywhere,” said Alexander Birkel about the anticipation to get into Columbia and then being able to interact with other future Columbia students. Thomas Nielsen had taken a gap year and so by the time the 2018 page came about he was “very zealous and excited to meet everybody.”  Most of our Facebook fames had been admitted early and they were all dying to meet their new classmates and, at the time, Facebook was the easiest way to do that.

They all had different comfort levels with internet communication; Heather Macomber and Nielsen attended online high schools and were pros at communicating via the internet. Others were just excited to get into that “frenzy of ‘oh-my-god-I’m-so-excited-we’re-going-to-be-classmates,’” as Caroline Lee said. The Facebook group provided a place to organize meetups or online hangouts and it became a safe haven of intellectual conversations, and a realization that soon they would be able to escape high school. “It was really interesting getting to talk to people from all over the world and hear their experiences,” noted Will Essilfie. The Facebook group provided a way for people to debate current events or just UChicago vs Columbia (though we’re not sure why anyone even needed to debate that).

Most of them credit the Facebook group to helping them make friends when they got to campus. The recognition helped start conversations, and because they had already gotten beyond the “hello my name is, where are you from etc.,” for some, like Lee it “helped start more in-depth conversations.” Three of the Facebook fames Nielson, Macomber and Luis Rivera actually ended up being on the same floor. They all recognized each other from Facebook and quickly formed a friend group… or should we say the most notable clique on campus? Apparently, they have made a new dance move.

Even though most of our Facebook fames realized they posted or commented a fair amount, none of them expected to be recognized when they got to campus or realized that they were Facebook famous; Macomber knew she posted more than most people and recognized other kids from Facebook, but she herself didn’t think she was at their level. Some of them, like Lee (who was named as Facebook famous probably more than most of the others) considered herself to only be “b-level” Facebook famous, and Carolina “Rainbow Ritz” (named by a handful of people) didn’t consider herself to be Facebook famous at all.

Although some people say that one’s Facebook persona is very different than who one is in real life, these kids all think they stayed pretty true to themselves on Facebook. The posting could be a bit excessive, but these interviews showed a deeper side of these students.

None of them have goals to advance their fame; they weren’t looking for Columbia Facebook fame in the first place, and most hope to get involved on campus and make new friends like any other first year at Columbia. To any prospective students out there, Nielsen says, “Don’t freak out too much…about making a good first impression… Everyone’s really nervous when they come here, and especially with the internet facilitating all of these interactions before coming here, people come in expecting that they have to be perfect in order to make friends and that’s definitely not true…. Just be a nice person and be good to people and good things will come your way.”

The amount of likes we wish we could get via Shutterstock