浅薄的Facebook人气比赛

About a week ago a new spoof arrived on Facebook– the Condescending Corporate Brand Page. It’s a send-up of the crass way companies try to get people to click on “like and “share on social networking sites by using cheesy pictures and moronic text. On its wall are cute animals and grinning multicultural employees as well as a picture of three slices of toast. Against the latter it says: “Who likes Toast? click ‘like’ on this post if you really like Toast to eat!

大约两周前，Facebook推出了一个新把戏——“没架子企业品牌专页(Condescending Corporate Brand Page)。一些公司在社交网站上用劣质图片和弱智文字诱使人们点击“喜欢和“分享按钮，该专页就是对这一愚蠢方式的滑稽模仿。在其页面上有可爱的动物、咧嘴而笑的来自不同文化的雇员，以及一张由三片烤面包片构成的图片。图片上写着：“谁喜欢烤面包片？如果你确实喜欢吃烤面包片，那就点击本帖的‘喜欢’按钮！

The inanity of this is quite funny. The trouble is, it’s nothing like as funny or as inane as the real thing.

此举的浅薄之处非常可笑。问题是，它还是比不上现实的可笑或者浅保

Take Burt’s Bees, a company that sells coconut stuff for putting on your feet. Its Facebook page is “liked by 1.2m people and generally held up as a great example of how to engage with consumers online. One of its latest pictures shows a china cow painted yellow and black with a beehive on its head. Next to the picture it says: “It’s Good News Friday and today good news says “mooooo?.?.?.?Give us a like if you love our cow!. This cutesy picture has gone down a storm. “Awesome! “Pretty creative! people commented, as they scrambled for the like button.

以Burt’s Bees为例，该公司出售抹在脚上的椰子产品。它的Facebook页面被120万人“喜欢，因此被普遍当作如何在网上吸引消费者的典型例子。该公司最新的图片上画着一只瓷牛，涂成黄黑相间，头上顶着一只蜂巢。图片旁边写道：“这是周五好消息时间，今天的好消息是‘哞——’……喜欢我们的牛就点‘喜欢’。这幅忸怩作态的图片掀起一阵旋风。人们纷纷评论“太棒了！“创意十足！，争先恐后地点击“喜欢按钮。

Target, the US retailer, is doing even better than Burt’s Bees in the Facebook popularity contest, and has persuaded a phenomenal 19m people to attest to “liking its page. It has just posted a photo of a birthday cake with 50 candles on it and explained: “This year we turn 50 and fabulous! Instead of birthday spankings, how about we go with birthday “likes?

美国零售商塔吉特(Target)在Facebook的人气比赛中比Burt’s Bees表现更好，竟然说服了1900万人对其页面表达“喜欢。塔吉特刚刚发布了一张照片，上面是一块生日蛋糕，插着50根蜡烛，注释写着：“今年塔吉特就50岁了，真难以置信！这次生日就不打屁股了吧，点点‘喜欢’来庆祝生日怎么样？

To this shameless, embarrassing and utterly pointless plea, 69,000 people – only about 10,000 less than fit in London’s Olympic Stadium – made a headlong dash to press “like.

对于这个毫无廉耻、令人尴尬而且毫无意义的恳求，竟然有6.9万人——仅比伦敦奥运会主体育场容纳的人数少1万人——一往无前地点击“喜欢。

Some of the pictures on corporate pages are not merely embarrassing, they are dangerous. Ragnar Relay, which organises races, has posted a cute photo of a dog running with tongue out and ears flapping. “Live like someone left the gate open, says the caption. Fans of the page roared their approval. “Love it! “So darling, they wrote.

企业主页的部分图片不仅仅让人尴尬，而且很危险。组织比赛的Ragnar Relay发布了一张可爱的照片，上面是一只正在奔跑的狗，吐着舌头，耳朵都飘了起来。照片标题写着：“生活就要像有人为你敞开着大门。该页面的粉丝咆哮着赞同。他们写道“爱死它了！“太可爱了！

But this picture is not only cheesy, it’s lethal. When I was a child someone did leave the gate open and our dog didn’t get to live at all. It died – under the wheels of a lorry.

但是这幅图片不仅低劣，而且致命。在我小时候，确实有人开着大门，而我家的狗压根没有活下去。它死了——死在了一辆卡车的车轮下。

My second quibble with the Condescending Corporate Brand Page is that it has got the butt of the joke wrong. The joke shouldn’t be on the stupidity of the companies that post this stuff but on the even more stupid people who, far from feeling embarrassed and patronised, voice their approval in their millions.

我反对“没架子企业品牌专页的第二条理由是，玩笑的笑点搞错了。笑点不应该是企业发布的这些东西的愚蠢之处，而是更为愚蠢的围观者——数百万人不仅没有感到尴尬可怜，还异口同声地表示认同。

I simply don’t understand why they do this – unless, of course, they are getting paid. I can just about grasp why a 13-year-old girl might click “like on her friend’s pouting Facebook pictures in the expectation that the friend will return the favour. But why anyone would go on the Subwaypage (“liked by 16m) and then give a thumbs-up to a Photoshopped image of a ham sandwich, is beyond me.

我就是不明白他们为什么这么做——当然，拿人钱财制造人气另当别论。如果一个13岁的小女孩在她朋友发在Facebook上的撅嘴照片上点击“喜欢，以期这位朋友报之以李，我还能理解。但为什么会有人访问赛百味(Subway)的页面（1600万人“喜欢），对用Photoshop修改过的火腿三明治照片竖起大拇指呢？这真令我匪夷所思。

But then maybe it is because I’m British. As a nation, we still haven’t quite got the swing of “liking corporate stuff – which makes me even more proud of my country than the fact that we seem to have made a success out of the Olympic Games. So when the Yorkshire-based bank, First Directposted on its wall a naff picture of its call-centre guys in brightly coloured tutus and posing with a ballerina, guess how many people “liked it? A pathetic 27.

不过这或许是因为我是英国人。英国人至今仍不习惯“喜欢企业的东西，这让我为英国感到骄傲，比我们似乎成功地举办了奥运会更骄傲。因此，当总部位于约克郡的First Direct银行在其页面发布一幅其呼叫中心的员工穿着鲜艳的芭蕾舞短裙、与一名芭蕾舞女演员摆拍的拙劣照片时，猜猜有多少人“喜欢？很可怜，只有27人。

Not all companies feel the need to compete in this grim popularity contest. Indeed, some seem to be doing the reverse, behaving as if they were trying to make themselves as unappealing as possible to the dim, over-appreciative online masses.

并非所有的公司都感到有必要参与这场令人生厌的人气比赛。实际上，有人似乎反其道而行，尽量努力让自己受到这群愚笨、过度表达欣赏的网民的排斥。

Take McKinsey. Instead of posting pictures of cute animals on its wall, it has gone for complex graphs instead. One plots “value potential against “ease of capture value potential – which strikes me as the social networking equivalent of pepper spray in terms of building popularity. Yet 35,000 brave souls were not deterred. They boldly pressed “like anyway.

以麦肯锡(McKinsey)为例。麦肯锡没有在其页面上发布可爱动物的照片，反而张贴了复杂的图表。有一幅图上画了“价值潜力与“获取价值潜力难易程度的对比图，这让我印象深刻，对于吸引社交网络人气，它就像把人驱走的胡椒喷雾剂。但还是有3.5万勇敢者没有被吓阻。他们无论如何还是大胆地点了“喜欢。

But the winner of the unpopularity contest on Facebook goes to Goldman Sachs. The investment bank is so very superior that it has declined to try at all. There is only one image on its wall, and that’s its logo. Otherwise, there is a sentence saying it’s an investment bank, and a map telling you where Wall Street is. But the site is still “liked by 16,295 people. Which seems an awful lot. I’ve just clicked on this number (as Facebook software allows you to do) and have found most of them live in Bhubaneswar in India. Which I understand even less than I understand any of the rest of it.

不过Facebook撵人比赛的获胜者当属高盛(Goldman Sachs)。这家投行丝毫不为时俗所动，连试都不试一下。其页面上只有一张图片，就是自家logo。此外还有一句话指出这是家投行，一张地图告诉来访者华尔街在哪里。不过该页面仍被16295人“喜欢。这看起来多得不可思议。我点开这个数字（Facebook的软件允许你这么做），发现多数人住在印度的布巴内斯瓦尔。比起对数据中其他人的了解，我对这个地方的了解就更少了。