by George Takei
The clever folks behind the social media curtain have managed to “game-ify” the whole experience, meaning we all are tempted to check the leader-boards. Having raw numbers at your disposal means you can quantify, at any time, how well fans are responding to you. Indeed, when I reached certain milestones, it felt like a big achievement, not unlike going up a level on a video game. I know I felt that way at my first 100,000 Twitter followers. I could hardly believe so many people actually cared to hear what I had to say on a daily basis.
Fast-forward nearly two years later, and what a difference the numbers make. It’s true, I’m mostly about Facebook these days, though I do have an account on Tumblr and the picture-sharing site Pinterest where I keep more of my favorite photos, and occasionally I’ll check in with the geeks over at Google+ or with my followers on Twitter. But on Facebook, with over three million fans as I write this, it’s hard to even compare those early days with the frenzy a single post can create today.
Facebook has gotten into the metrics game, too, encouraging pages like mine to “bring our game” by providing daily statistics on fan growth, virality, and reach. I also receive a weekly email update of how many new fans I have, and how many have been “talking about” me during the week — meaning people who clicked “like” on my page or one of my posts, commented on or wrote something on my page, or shared content. Lately, that number has actually been exceeding the total number of fans I have, indicating there are folks out there who are participating on the page without even becoming actual fans.
I’ve come to understand that it’s not the total number of fans that matters so much as how “engaged” they are with my page. Justin Bieber may have many more fans than I do, but on the question of engagement, I’ve got the Biebs beat hands down most weeks. In fact, my Webmaster told me the other day that my page often rises to hold the title of second most popular “personal” page on Facebook. “Well, what’s the first?” I heard my Asian parents asking in my head. Turns out it’s something called “Jesus Daily” — a collection of affirmatory and inspirational posts that, you guessed it, come out daily about our Savior. I suppose I’m just fine playing second fiddle to Jesus.
© Mila Petkova - Fotolia.com - Used with Permission
Beyond the “talking about” number, which measures fan engagement, there’s also something called the “weekly total reach” (which is an incomprehensible 30 million as I write this). That refers to how many other people, meaning presumably friends of fans, actually saw something I posted. Then there’s the more nebulous “friends of friends” stat, which is way up in some stratospheric number of 226 million. I’m not exactly sure what Facebook wishes to convey with that number, other than that there really are only six degrees to Kevin Bacon, but the gist is that a lot of potential people can now see the same post through viral sharing.
I was most delighted to learn that when Facebook wanted to create a graphical representation of how a post goes viral, they selected some of my own posts to use as examples. I’ll describe one of them. Around the time of the landing of Curiosity on Mars, a fan left this on my wall as the first picture taken from the rover:
I shared it right away, and when I checked it the next day, it had received over 100,000 likes (timing, I’ve found, is the key to breaking six figures). Facebook went back and actually mapped how the post went viral. I’m represented in the center of this fractal-like image:
You can see an animated version of this at vimeo.com/50730773
You can see that “my” virality depends also in large part on certain other unspecified centers, where much later activity occurs. I imagine these might be other blogs or pages that follow my page, who have thousands or even millions of their own fans. It’s truly remarkable to contemplate how connected we all are, and how quickly a thought or image can now spread.
Using Facebook “Insights” I can delve deeper and see where my fans are located, not only by country, but even by city. It’s no surprise that my biggest fan base is my hometown of Los Angeles. I can also see how old they are, what gender they are, and, principally, what languages they speak. Looking at those numbers is a heady experience, and I’m especially grateful for all of the overseas fans who participate in English on my page.
Having relatively high numbers also means that I get to play all sorts of fun games on friends. I particularly enjoy dropping what I call “Facebombs” on my colleagues. One example was the actor Telly Leung, who stars alongside me in Allegiance. I play the older version of Telly’s character, Sam Kimura, in the present day; he plays the younger version of me in the 1940s. On Telly’s birthday, I wanted to surprise him by sending fans over to his page. At the time, he had some 2,000 Facebook fans — a respectable number for a young up-and-coming actor. Then came the Facebomb. I asked my fan base to do me the honor of clicking “Like” on Telly’s page, and to see whether we could double his number to 4,000. Within half an hour, he had jumped to over 5x the original number, and his wall was filled with well-wishers, saying that George had sent them. I was delighted that fans were willing to play along, and Telly was astonished to now have over 10,000 fans.
I played a similar game with the producers of Allegiance, who had painstakingly built their fan page from zero to around 140,000 fans. During our run, they had hoped that fan interest would push their numbers higher, so I bet them a round of drinks that I could get them past 200,000. They were admittedly skeptical. But with just two nudges to my very loyal fans, the numbers jumped almost 25,000 in a single day.
So I doubled down: “I’ll bet you another round of drinks you’ll have 250,000 by Opening Night.” We started the bet at around 165,000 fans and, at first, it seemed I had bitten off more than I could comfortably chew. Fans who had been willing to go to bat for me appeared to have already signed up as Allegiance fans, and it seemed the rest couldn’t be bothered. We were hovering around 180,000 fans but had stalled out. So I did what I had to do. I begged.
“I don’t like to lose,” I told fans. “But I bet the producers another round of drinks that I could get us to 250,000 by Opening Night.” Well, that shameless plea did the trick, and we soared past 250,000 before the curtain rose on Opening Night. And I got a free round of drinks, something they were more than happy to spring for.
There is certainly a more serious side to having an ever-growing number of fans. Every day, I am asked by dozens of people to lend my help or influence to any number of incredibly worthy causes. But because of my busy schedule, I have to turn down nearly every invitation to speak, and there aren’t enough posts in the day to be able to even accommodate one-tenth of the requests I receive. I hope that fans and activists understand that, when it comes down to it, I now have to pick my battles or risk losing both credibility and effectiveness should I support too many causes.
These causes go far beyond LGBT rights or reminding fans about the injustices of the Japanese American internment. Almost daily, I’m asked by fans to publicize events, groups or campaigns, to help find lost children by putting out a nationwide Amber alert, or even send well-wishers by the thousands to the page of someone terminally ill, in the hopes that positive support will make the difference. I did this once, and it had a tremendous positive effect, but it opened the door to dozens and dozens of similar requests. I have had many long discussions with Brad about how much of my page should be devoted to causes I’d like to champion, knowing full well that to continue to reach a lot of people, I can’t make this my own soap box all the time.
On the other hand, the numbers of engaged fans willing to help out with my pet projects could result in some powerful results. I launched my first crowd-funded initiative on a site called Indiegogo. The producers of Allegiance and I hoped to raise $50,000 to help fund the show. I had no idea whether fans would respond, and they told me privately that if we raised even $20,000 they’d consider it a win. In fact, they picked Indiegogo over Kickstarter precisely because with Indiegogo, you don’t have to raise your goal completely before any actual fun
ds are collected.
All of us underestimated the enthusiasm and generosity of the fans. Within a week we sailed past our $50,000 goal, with some fans even donating $1,000 or even $5,000 to help make Allegiance happen. As we approached $100,000 I told the fans that I would do something special if we got there: my “Happy Dance” — something normally Brad only gets the privilege of seeing. Lo' and behold, in six shakes of a lamb’s tail, we wound up raising over $158,000 for the show. I could hardly believe it. While this was still only enough to cover a small portion of what we would need, it helped tremendously, and perhaps more importantly, I proved that crowd-sourced funding really worked with my fans. Oh, and I did do my Happy Dance. Here’s a shot from that:
You can see the whole dance at youtube.com/watch?v=cSjO-rWMuJo
Amazingly, even this video now has something on the order of 870,000 views, which I’m pleased to note means even more people have heard about our show.
Because of the success of that crowd-funding effort, I quickly became bombarded with requests to support other projects. I’ve had to turn all but a few of these down, mostly because I don’t want my fans to feel “charity fatigue” every time they log in. But on occasion I will stumble upon something that truly moves me, and I’m compelled to lend a hand. This happened specifically with a wonderful video made by a young man, Shane Britney Crone, who had lost his life partner to a terrible accident. Shane created a YouTube video in memory of his love, and to highlight the unfairness of how Shane was kept from attending his partner’s funeral services by a family that didn’t accept their relationship, even though they had been together as a couple for six years.
Shane wrote to me and told me he needed help raising the final funds for a documentary he wanted to make about his story, entitled Bridegroom. The Kickstarter campaign had stalled on funding at around $150,000, only half of what they needed to raise, and he was worried that his project would go unfunded. When I learned he would be working with acclaimed producer Linda Bloodworth-Thomason of Designing Women, I was impressed, and I felt the project could use a bit of what Brad calls the “Takei” bump.
In all, I posted twice about Bridegroom, and once again, I could hardly believe the results. It became the most funded documentary movie ever on Kickstarter, with well over $300,000 raised. Shane and Linda wrote wonderful emails to me, thanking for the help, but it is really my fans who I have to thank for stepping up. All I can really provide is a shot of fuel; the project has to merit support on its own to garner this kind of backing. Shane is now traveling the world speaking about the film and being honored for raising awareness of the issue. While it can never erase the pain of losing a beloved partner and of being so heartlessly denied his emotional, if not legal, rights, I hope the success of his film will bring him some solace and closure. I look forward to attending the premiere, and I hope it does well at all the film festivals.
More recently, I joined forces with Humans of New York and Tumblr to raise funds for victims of Hurricane Sandy. In addition to publicizing the campaign on my social media platforms, I donated a special portrait of me “On Broadway.” Apparently, $300,000 seems to be the magic number for me, because by the end of the fundraiser on Thanksgiving Day, we had raised in excess of $318,000 together.
But for every Bridegroom or Hurricane Sandy relief effort, there are dozens and dozens of regrets I have to send. It saddens me to no end to have to turn people down; in fact, most of the time I don’t even have the resources or staff to respond to them, and I worry that they think I am being cold or aloof. Some have even “unfriended” me because I failed to respond or took no action. I understand the hurt here; each of us has a passion project, and it’s hard to accept that others may not share the same commitment or be willing to devote the same time and resources.
In a perfect world, I’d like nothing more than to be able to help all who ask. Because that’s not possible, I’m now in the process of “systematizing” some of this, so that perhaps once a quarter I can help out somewhere, perhaps by having fans submit their wishes or requests to my interns, who can sort it all out. I may even have to, gulp, start hiring people to help.
The way things are going, I will need to make some changes. At present, my Facebook page gains between 25,000 and 50,000 new fans a week. I’m told that people click “like” after their friends shared repeatedly from my wall. “I’m not a Trekkie, but so many of my friends share your images, I’ve come to join the party” is a common theme. I don’t know how long these numbers can, or will, continue to rise, but I am very much enjoying the ride. People on the street stop me now as much for my Facebook page as for my work on Star Trek or Howard Stern. It’s a strange honor to be recognized simply for sharing what is largely other people’s material, but I’ve come to recognize that people appreciate a good laugh more than almost anything. And so as long as they keep coming and sharing with me, I’ll keep putting it out there for them.
Apocalypse Soon
Maybe it’s because we live in a more cynical, post-9/11 world, or maybe it’s because we have all seen too many post-apocalyptic movies, but my fans are decidedly and irretrievably obsessed with the end of the world. Any post I make relating to our collective destruction is sure to gain a following and to be shared avidly among the soon-to-be destroyed. We are all doom and gloom, and loving every bit of it.
The year 2012 was a particularly fertile time for the apocalypse-burdened. I blame the Maya principally for this. An aside: I learned that the correct term is “Maya” and not “Mayan,” which apparently refers only to the language. The incorrect term is in such common usage, however, that people often don’t know what I’m talking about if I use “Maya.”
I once had the great privilege of visiting the ruins of a Maya temple in Tikal, Guatamala. It was a Star Trek cruise that took us down the Mexican coast. To get to the ruins, we had to board a specially chartered, very rickety aircraft, which ominously piped in the music from Titanic as we climbed to cruising altitude.
Tikal blew away all apprehensions over that flight. It was astounding. Built some 2,500 years ago, central Tikal covers about six miles. Looming up out of the tangle of dense jungle growth, awe-inspiring in their majesty, stood the ruins of four temple structures. Their bases were not pyramids but steeply slanted stepped shafts that soared up to a terrace in the sky. Imposingly ensconced on top were the ornately carved stone temples of the Maya high priests. Climbing to the top was, literally, a breath-taking workout. Many in our group didn’t even attempt it. A friend named Cecily Adams, actress and daughter of actor Don Adams, fit athlete that she was, made it to the top with me. Here we are, pictured together in this admittedly grainy picture from that trip. Cecily tragically passed from cancer at age 46 in 2004.
The view from that spectacular vantage was as breathtaking as the climb. Below was the great central plaza where the ritual ceremonies were held. Across the way were the other temple structures. And surrounding us all was the jungle that had claimed these awesome edifices when the Maya nation mysteriously vanished. It boggled the mind to realize that this amazing civilization was built without the use of the wheel.
As most of us somehow have become aware, the Maya calendar only goes “up to” 2012. It is also based on lunar cycles, so the final, approximate date of their calendar falls on the winter solstice, 12/21/12. This not only looks like an ominous number, but is curiously just one month away from the date I am writing this. Dum-dum!!
The Maya were keen on making predictions about the future, usually about the weather and such. Depending on whom you believe, they also apparently loved to consort with alien life forms and build temples with amazing astronomical significance. Those temple builders probably knew they would have us all fretting thousands of years later, and had a good laugh over making particularly ominous markings. One popular comic strip that I reposted showed a Maya stonecutter explaining that there was only room on his sun disc to go up to 2012 and predicting that it was going to mess a lot of people up one day.
As I write this, it occurs to me that we could have some fun “punking” future generations. All I’d need to do is ask for fans to carve the words “The End” and the date 12/21/3012 into rocks, walls and streets all around the world. Imagine the consternation in 1,000 years. Suck on that, Mayas.
Here is one of the more popular Maya-related images I shared:
It wasn’t more than a few minutes after posting this that I was treated to a quick history lesson by my Facebook fans. “George, don’t blame the Spanish for the decline of the Mayans! You’re perpetuating anti-colonialism with false information!!!” I learned that my post was wrong on two counts. First, the Maya civilization had its height between 250 and 900 A.D., and then collapsed before 1000 A.D., long before the Spanish conquered the Yucatan Peninsula in the 1500s. Some speculate that it was overpopulation, others suggest a prolonged drought, or perhaps disease. We may never really know for sure, because one thing the Spanish did do was destroy all of the Maya texts that might have told us. Nice going. So while no one is quite sure what caused the decline of the Maya, it clearly wasn’t the Spanish, who were pretty late to the party with their guns and smallpox (if you haven’t read Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond, it’s worth the time. Fascinating).
