The internet is a very weird place. In seconds, you can go from watching a video of a cat playing piano, to seeing a picture of an ancient artifact that has been discovered, to watching your family argue over a meme on Facebook. The internet certainly has the power to divide, but it also has the power to bring people together.
Over the past few months, many of us have dived deeper and deeper into the internet, exploring those strange corners often left unviewed when we had other things occupying our time. Now that we’re all spending more time at home, we finally have the time to explore all the things the internet has to offer. It is during these times that I’ve discovered some of the strangest communities in the deep crevices of the internet. What’s even more baffling than the subject matter of these communities is the large follower count and number of active members who post on a daily basis.
One such community is the fanbase of Saxsquatch. Saxsquatch is an independent band whose largest community following is on Facebook, where he is a verified public figure. Saxsquatch is simply a man who plays the saxophone in the woods dressed in a sasquatch costume. As his nearly 600,000 followers would ponder, though, is it really a costume? Saxsquatch is so popular that he has his own merchandise, a five star rating on Facebook and is even on tour promoting his original mixtape. The ticket prices to see Saxsquatch live range from $40 to $240, and his first three tour stops in Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky are already sold out. The final four stops of his tour include Ohio, Virginia and South Carolina, but according to his Facebook page, he is looking into adding more locations as his performance is in high demand.
Facebook seems to be the home of many of these strange figures and communities. One such community is a public Facebook group called Frogspotting. Much like the popular page Dogspotting, Frogspotting is for people to post pictures of frogs and frog related content. The group boasts nearly 300,000 active members, with an average of 3,000 people joining on a weekly basis. The group, while quite niche, has become so popular that its users are starting to spread the content onto other social media platforms. A trend has emerged on Tiktok where people go to Michaels craft store and buy the large plastic frogs — which are meant to be Halloween decorations — lovingly nicknamed the ‘Michaels Frog,’ and make TikTok videos dressing them up, having tea with them and even turning them into purses. The popularity of these frogs originated from the Facebook group Frogspotting, where people excitedly posted about their new froggy friends. The trend has become so popular that some Michaels stores have run out of stock.
Speaking of Tiktok, strange niche groups are on the rise there, too. You can follow different hashtags to see videos on specific subjects, and one such subject I’ve followed up on is Bean Tiktok. The users tag their videos about anything bean-related and it shows up under the Bean Tiktok hashtag. The hashtag has an astounding 12.5 million views total and is on the rise with every new video.
Strange communities such as these have taken the internet by storm. There are hundreds of groups just like those aforementioned where people interact on a daily basis and develop personal bonds over the weirdest interests. The question still remains: what draws people to groups such as these?
In the simplest of answers, it just makes people happy. There’s a lot of stuff going on in the world, and a lot of it is very stressful. People are experiencing unequivocal amounts of loss and tragedy in their everyday lives, so they’re looking for outlets. When you watch a video of a man dressed as a sasquatch playing saxophone in the woods, you don’t have to think about whatever horrible news headline you read that morning. You can come together with people over frogs and not be divided over politics.
While it may not be cryptids playing musical instruments or daily photos of cute frogs, the internet definitely has something that will bring joy to every person, and the power of that is unrivaled.
