Waking up to look after 65,000 people
The trials, tribulations and occasional thrills of being a Facebook group admin
Waking up to look after 65,000 people
The trials, tribulations and occasional thrills of being a Facebook group admin
I’m guessing that Facebook as a social media entity won’t be around much longer, at least not in its current form. The corporation has now become Meta, which foreshadows a metaverse to come but the rebranding is also a little ironic when you think about how Gen Z and Millennials use the term “meta” to mean anything that’s self-referencing, and that describes the Facebook platform — meta, self-referencing, creating a digital mythology around itself while being supremely and arrogantly self-conscious about doing so.
When Facebook finally expires or morphs into Meta (or something else), we’ll all look back fondly on the golden era of the Facebook experience, much like many older millennials and older generations now look back on the golden era of MySpace. It will seem quaint to the Gen Z adults of the future, since we know that Gen Z avoids Facebook like a clever mouse avoids a trap. Yet maybe there is still some life in Facebook, and that life is not in its Westworld-like algorithms or its rotting attempts at community, such as Facebook Marketplace or Facebook Dating. There’s still a pulse in Facebook’s groups, particularly the fan-oriented groups where people from all over the planet and from all demographics sign up as members to chart about their favorite celebrity or movie or TV series whilst verbally tearing one another to shreds about anything at all.
Start-up, 2017-2018
I can’t speak to everyone’s experience with Facebook groups, nor can I illustrate what it’s like to be the administrator of any given Facebook group because they’re all very different, but I can tell you about my experiences and you can draw your own conclusions. In 2017, I had been a member of several Facebook groups but had only created one successful Facebook group before that, but I wasn’t managing that group anymore. I had become a fan of the AMC Breaking Bad prequel, Better Call Saul, and after searching for a fan group for it and not finding one, I decided to pay tribute to the show by starting my own Better Call Saul group. I had the audacity to call it the “Better Call Saul Official Fan Group”, thinking that my strategy would attract people who were looking for something more “official.” When people challenged me on that, I always joked that it was the “official fan group” because it was for people who considered themselves “official fans.” The group grew slowly and seemed to take a long time to reach the milestone of 5,000 members, but by January 2021, we had 10,000 members. In the early days of the group there wasn’t very much engagement, in spite of my efforts to post stimulating and even controversial content about the show, which was a brilliant effort by the creators of Breaking Bad, Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould. Often the most popular posts were promotional photos of cast members, such as images of the gorgeous Rhea Seehorn, who played the emerging character Kim Wexler in the series. In fact, a photo of Seehorn reclining on a couch in a sexy pose was one of the most popular banners for the group page, which also had some women complaining that it was sexist. Ah, may be we exploited that bit, but it was equal opportunity exploitation because we also posted cheesecake photos of popular male cast members, particularly who played anti-hero Nacho Varga.
Group Growth, 2019-2020
After a while, I realized that I didn’t have to do it all myself. I could appoint someone in the group as a moderator or “mod”, which allowed them some limited powers but also let me keep control over the group. My first mod was Crystal Loverro, an upcoming young actress who had joined the group as a big fan of the show; she was such a smart and outgoing person that she’d seemed like a perfect fit for the mod role. I also started noticing a male member of the group who seemed very engaged and dedicated. He would post regularly and also flag any posts or comments that were inappropriate, which I appreciated because I never had time to read absolutely every post and comment in the group, even back then. I asked him if he’d like to be another one of the mods for the group and he agreed. At first he seemed to be the perfect foil or counterpart for me. My admin style is to be friendly, respectful, gracious and welcoming, but establishing rules for good behavior in the group so that all members could participate without feeling that they would be abused or “trolled” for their opinions. He was good at weeding out troublemakers and either suspending them for rule violations or outright removing and blocking them. This was still working well for me, a kind of “good cop, bad cop” scenario.
Then one day it all blew up and someone told me about how he was being abusive to members so I removed him from the group completely. I was relieved that I had never trusted him enough to make him an admin, which would have given him the same level of control of the group that I had. Eventually all the drama died down and my odd mod disappeared into the black hole of social media, but I never forgot that experience and it made me more diligent and cautious about who I appointed as a mod for the group.
Throughout 2019-2021, the group kept growing but there was a minimal amount of effort needed to maintain it as it expanded beyond 10,000 members. There were always a few cranks that had to be removed and blocked, but the core members of the group who loved the show kept contributing to it regularly. I was often told that our groups had far less abuse and drama in it than most other Facebook groups they belonged to, and I was proud of that distinction because I sincerely wanted to make the group a fun, safe and intelligent forum for all members. After more than five years of running the group, I can say that the majority of our members have been reasonable, intelligent and fair-minded people who simply loved Better Call Saul and wanted to be a part of intelligent discussions about it. Its been a privilege meeting so many of those members over the years. Especially a few of the members that I appointed as mods, and then as co-admins, during the lead up to the final season and right up to the extraordinary series finale.
The Final Season, 2021-2022
In January 2021, we had reached the milestone of 10,000 members and growth was steady but slow. I could still vet every membership request, and I did — people had to answer screening questions and I checked if there were fake profiles or rejected membership requests that were for unsuitable reasons. Over the years, we had our share of members who were not fans but simply spammers who were trying to sell Better Call Saul merchandise to our members — mostly T-shirts. I always removed and blocked those people instantly, not because the merchandise wasn’t relevant to members but because we didn’t want members who were just there to spam the group and didn’t really care about the show. The mods changed, too. Crystal left as she became more consumed with her career. One of my favorite mods, Raymond Alvarez, served the group so well but had to leave around 2020. For a while I had no mods to help me. Then the membership requests started flooding in as the date for the final, sixth season was announced. There were so many membership requests from people in Spanish-speaking countries as well, which puzzled me because there was an incredibly large Spanish-speaking Better Call Saul group that had around 90,000 members, so why didn’t they prefer that one. But again, so many people loved our group because we made it safe and fair for all members. We removed posts and members that were abusive in any way, whether they were sexist, racist, homophobic or discriminatory in any other way.
To help me manage a group that was growing by the hundreds every week — 15,000, 20,000, 25,000, 35,000 and upward — I added a new mod who had been a valuable contributor to the group content, Michael Getsie. Michael brought the kind of intelligence, fairness and level-headness that I had always wanted for the group. We established a group chat on Messenger where we could regularly share war stories about what was happening in the group, who was being blocked, what funny things were happening and other daily minutiae. We’d also talk about the show and where we thought the characters would be headed in the final season. Then the membership requests continued to grow, almost alarmingly — 40,000, 50,000, 55,000 — we gave up on trying to review and vet every member, now we had to use automated membership approvals. That freed us to pay more attention to the quality of the group discussions and ensuring all members were following all the official rules of conduct. By the time season 6 had almost begun, we had around 60,000 members and actually decided to hide the group for a while so that the only new members would be those who had been invited by existing members. Hiding the group meant that anyone searching for a Better Call Saul group on Facebook would not see our group, but those who were already members would be able to see it and receive notifications of group activity.
Around that time, Michael and I agreed that it was time to add new mods. Ever since Crystal left, the group hadn’t had any female mods, so to ensure representation for our female members (which were in the minority, according to the stats Facebook provides about members), I put out a call for any women in the group who would like to be mods during the final season. While I was receiving messages from some women who were interested, I noticed that one member, Courtney Glass, was contributing a lot of valuable content to the group and even had her own YouTube channel where she discussed the show, so I invited her to become a mod and she accepted.