Fittingly, the most iconic Facebook status update for 2011 was a plea for attention: ‘lms for a tbh’
Facebook doesn't just have a list of 2011's top trends gleaned from the status updates of their 800-million user... they have a study of memology.
As Facebook data cruncher Jonathan Chang writes in a blog post Tuesday morning "Memology takes the pulse of this global community by comparing this year's status updates to last year's, unearthing the most popular topics and cultural trends – or memes – emerging on Facebook."
Sounds heavy, so what was the number one meme that emerged on Facebook in 2011? A three letter acronym requesting likes: "LMS" or "Like My Status" is tops globally, and also the most popular status update in Canada.
Many users pair that with "TBH" or "to be honest,'' according to Mr. Chang "to give honest feedback about friends." Apparently use of "lms for a tbh" is slowing, but is likely to be a permanent addition to the Facebook parlance.
The social media behemoth says it has 18 million active Canadian users per month, making Canada one of the biggest countries on the site on a per capita basis.
The number two trend for Canada was Jack Layton, the NDP leader who died after leading his perennially third-place party to Official Opposition status in the last federal election.
Rounding out the list are:
3: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3,
4: Death of Osama bin Laden
5: Charlie Sheen
6: Independent horror film Insidious
7: Libya
8: Death of Amy Winehouse,
9: Jersday – a reference to the reality show "Jersey Shore"
10: Skrillex, a producer who collaborated with metal band Korn in 2011
The sheer randomness of the Facebook list is what makes it interesting. They note that Planking flirted with top trend status for parts of the year, but perhaps was ultimately too weird to become ubiquitous. After a burst in May, when the son of New Zealand's Prime Minister posed in a plank shot with his dad in the background, Mr. Chang writes that "the fad quickly lost steam," and even some celebrity planking by Katy Perry and Tom Green "couldn't stem planking's eventual decline."
There are a host of other lists you can scroll through, sadly top sports figures and teams features no Canadian content, and good for The Onion becoming a top "news" source along with the likes of CNN, Al Jazeera and the BBC.
But of all the lists perhaps our new favourite is the Top 10 most-liked fictional character pages in 2011:
1: Dr. House (Fox series House)
2: Dory ( Finding Nemo)
3: Patrick Star ( SpongeBob Squarepants)
4: Mr. Bean (British buffoon)
5: Upin & Ipin (Malaysian animated series)
6: Bob Esponja (The Spanish name for SpongeBob Squarepants)
7: Mario (Nintendo games)
8: Doraemon (Japanese anime Gadget Cat from the Future)
9: Ari Gold (HBO series Entourage)
10: Sue Sylvester (Fox series Glee)
We might go like some stuff right now.
With files from The Canadian Press
Shane Dingman