Forget private grudges; if you have a grievance, create a group on Facebook and you could soon find millions of people who share your feelings. Such was the case for 1,535,470 of them who so loathed the Canadian rock band Nickelback that they considered the humble pickle superior, according to a public popularity poll created on the social networking site. The Facebook group "Can this pickle get more fans than Nickelback?" trounced the band's own Facebook page, which has 1,430,164 fans.
Nickelback need not hang up their guitars just yet, though: this new craze for comparing bands, celebrities and politicians to unglamorous items has become the newest Facebook trend, with several thousand groups declaring their preference for carrots, potatoes and strange insects over the likes of Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber, the Jonas Brothers and Twilight. "I bet this toenail can get more fans than Twilight ..." reads one. With a paltry 127 fans it has a long way to go until it tops fans of The Twilight Saga, whose page has 5,103,039.
Among the less illuminating ones ("I bet my hand can get more fans that my foot" and "I bet this fanpage about fanpages can get more fanpages than that other fanpage") are some interesting revelations. It was a resounding "yes" to the question: can an insect get more votes than the head of the far-right British National Party, Nick Griffin. Thankfully, Barack Obama succeeded in fighting off competition from a squirrel by several million.
