About

The Facebook Top Fan Badge is a designation rewarded to the most active participants of a Facebook group represented through a small, gold star next to the user's display name. Since its release, the badge has been the subject of numerous jokes and memes regarding its perceived social currency.

Origin

On March 19th, 2018, Facebook^[1] published a press release in their newsroom blog entitled "Testing New Tools and Experiences for Creators." In the post, the company detailed the rollout of a new feature for fan engagement.

As we continue to help creators build relationships with their audiences, we’re going to make it easier to identify and connect with their most passionate fans. We’re starting a new test that highlights a creator’s top fans by displaying a badge next to their names and adding their name to a leaderboard of highly engaged fans. We’ll identify top fans based on how often they comment, share, react or watch a creator’s content, as well as the creator’s interactions with the fan and other criteria. Fans will opt into this experience, and they can turn off the feature at any time.

Later that year, the company announced that they would be rolling out the feature more broadly.^[2]

Spread

In the months following the rollout of the feature, people online began making jokes about the perceived social currency of the "Top Fan" designation. For example, on November 16th, 2018, Facebook^[3] group Funmate – kannada posted an image of John Cena laughing in response receiving a "Top Fan" badge. The post received more than 100 reactions (shown below, left).

The following year, jokes about the designation continued. On April 8th, 2019, the Facebook^[4] page for 9GAG posted a meme about Top Fans that received more than 20,000 reactions, 2,800 comments and 300 shares in less than one month (shown below, center)

On April 14th, Facebook^[5] group 8shit posted a Tom Reading the Newspaper meme that compared "ordinary fans" and "top fans." The post received more than 11,000 reactions, 1,300 comments and 225 comments in less than one month (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References