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You have probably come across Facebook groups with a name that starts with “A Group Where We Pretend to be ___.” These communities behave almost like your usual group that shares memes around a specific topic, but in this case, the meme is the platform itself. A community with a meme governing how people interact with one another. We can classify into two: Pretend Groups and Parody Groups.
Taft Manila is home to several universities. The members of A Group Where We Pretend To Be In Taft (69k members) are either college alumni or current students who are now doing school from home. Here, people post content acting like they are currently in the area. Similar FB groups for BGC (57k), UP Manila (10k), and Poblacion (2.2k) popped up in 2020. This trend on pretend groups is not limited to locations; A Group Where We Pretend It’s 2009-2012 (700k), is a global FB group with posts only about 2009-2012 pop culture references.
This trend seemed to have evolved from satirical roleplay groups, which are still very active now. This is where members exaggeratedly act like a parody of a concept or a specific audience. A Group Where We Pretend To Be Millennials (14k), A group where we all pretend that the Philippines is a first world country (8k), and the very recent Home Buddies Hampaslupa Version (324k) —A parody of the original Home Buddies Group (1M) are some examples of this.
Pretend Groups – Mentally, I’m here.
Pretend groups in the Philippines started when quarantine began. People were stuck at home so Filipinos looked for ways to recreate offline experiences, online. News feeds show a longing for a time pre-pandemic. A pretend group is a meme that represents their thoughts and feelings around this. In the Taft group, people reference to moments when they were there; reliving their favorite experiences, talking about student problems, making fun of themselves for being conyo, photos of drinking places they miss, or everyday moments at the time; e.g. a photo of a usual parking space back then with caption May parking pa ba bro?. (insert sample photo)
2009-2012 was such a great period for people that 700k+ members decided to make their news feed travel back in time. Here, people commit to playing the role of someone who posts like 9gag is a thing, Michael Jackson just died, or they are about to see the 2nd installment of the Twilight Saga, New Moon. (insert sample photo post) Variations of this group extend further back to 2005. Nothing shows wanting to go back to simpler times than roleplaying with thousands of people.
It is like being back in the area and the period that you miss, only this time you are talking to everyone and anyone can talk to you and plays along with the conversation you started. It is like sitting with your old friends again, only this time, you are a bigger group. Who did not want to feel that in the last 13 months? For now, people find satisfaction by mentally being there.
Parody Group – Satirical Roleplay Communities.
Pretend groups can also be parody groups wherein members make fun of themselves, like how students post funny self-deprecating tweets. Some groups, however, are entirely satirical. If you have heard the line “ang kulit talaga ng utak ng pinoy”; this takes it to a new level. The motivation is not wanting to be in a place or time, but to simply have some fun with an idea while people play along with you. Satire would commonly take the form of an article, art piece, or a social media content; such as a post mocking how an influencer would go to ridiculous lengths to get attention or how rich people subtly show off their wealth by “posting to inspire not to brag”. A parody group is where satire has taken the form of online roleplay.
Home Buddies group on Facebook aims to talk about all things home related. It became popular for amazing home shots and getting members to improve their homes. The latter is also popularly humorously called “budol.” A part of the community has taken notice of this trajectory and started a running joke expressing how they do not belong in the group because they do not have as much nice homie things as the members posting dream-like home improvements. This is all for humor of course. This portion of the group saw this pattern and created the parody version, a hampaslupa version which got 300k members within a month where people act like they are in the Home Buddies group, except they post amusing content far from dream houses subtly making fun of how people interact in the original group. (insert sample photo post) A Group Where We All Pretend That The Philippines Is A First World Country was created amidst people’s expressions of dissatisfaction towards the current government administration. Here they start conversations pretending that they live in the best country of the world, some are sarcasm, and some post in the context of entirely pretending that they are living in a country that is full of progress. (insert sample photo post)
Participating in the narrative
For both, people publish what they would usually post on the public FB news feed, but the difference with these parody and pretend groups is that interaction is not limited with people you personally know. Almost everyone would want to play along with the narrative you created. The feeling of belongingness is much higher. Did you ever have a story that only people from BGC will be able to relate? Or an inside joke that only sarcastic pinoys will understand? Now you know where to publish it that will get hundreds of people participating.
The pretend/parody groups are not only about compiling the content that you want, but it is also about the interaction you crave since that is the “pretend” concept you signed up for. When it comes to topics, it also shows that the more specific the theme, the more attached the audience are. Let’s Eat Pare and Home Buddies are bigger groups with more vast topics about food and home; but if there’s a group specific to the type of food you regularly eat (an example would be a vegan group) or a home group with members that are in the same social class as you, wouldn’t you feel it’s designed more for you? We see this niche logic with memes as well. A meme about student problems cramming for a test is relevant, but a meme video about how there is always a pregnant lady at Mercury drugstores gets more than 4 million views.
A thought for businesses
Like memes or recurring social media conversations, the existence of a pretend/parody group tells us about what people are going through: their current desires and struggles. But unless a group reaches news media level attention, the usual social media listening tools do not have the capabilities to spot these rising groups and uncover sentiments within them due to platform privacy reasons. Businesses should work with their agencies to figure out ways to spot and scan these communities for opportunities.
For brands that are relevant to the existing communities, partnering with the group admins for exclusive promos and programs is a good way to reach a niche audience. This is fit for brands who are known in the areas where people create pretend groups for, such as restaurants or malls in the Taft area. It could be a way to recreate memories of a specific place of that wide area. The advantage of this compared to doing it publicly on the brand page is that level of authenticity and comfort that people have towards admins who will organize and facilitate the campaign for your brand. Which FB community do you think your product is most relevant to? What is the most natural way to engage those members? A contest, a raffle, a content creation trend, series of entertaining content, etc. The admins know best the answer to the second question.
For brick-and-mortar businesses that are not as visited as they were pre-pandemic, are you spotting conversations around people missing the place? Is there high volume of people talking about their memories of that area pre-pandemic? If the answer is yes, then it is time to create a platform to curate these conversations and interactions, i.e. A group where we pretend to be in <insert your business here>. The same opportunity goes to brands that have spotted a volume of parody conversations around a topic naturally connected to their product. Is your brand talked about in a funny unique way? If you post about it, will people participate in the narrative? If you’re a snack or baon brand, there might be a good opportunity to strengthen that by creating A group where we all pretend to be classmates. If you’re a cooking brand, perhaps you can latch on the Shef meme culture to curate conversations and interactions around the trend of pretending to be a chef vlogger. When it comes to creating a group, a good way to test is to look at your most commented post or any initiative you had that got people talking or creating content the most. You can use that as a jump of point to start getting into pretend or parody groups.
For short-term campaign efforts, collaborating with the group is your best option to gather learnings without much time investment and commitment. Creating a branded group, however, requires playing a longer game. Keep in mind of the difference between the purpose of the FB page and the purpose of the FB group. People follow pages because they like the brand; people join groups because they want to see more from other people. At the start, it is important that admins (real people not the brand) keep conversations going. What businesses should avoid is creating an FB community that will not become self-sustaining in the long run. More importantly, however, success in any groups relies on answering yes to this question: Will people participate in the narrative you started?