Wonders never seem to end and this has got to rank on top, it’s a Facebook group where over 1.8 million people pretend they are ants and worship their queen.
The lockdown necessitated by the coronavirus pandemic has no doubt boosted the popularity of the “ant group” that was created in June 2019.
As of March 2020, the group boasted of only 100,000 members but since the pandemic lockdown that has seen people do unusual things, the group’s membership has skyrocketed to over a million in less than two months.
A last check of the group showed that the Facebook group where everyone “worships the Queen and do ant stuff” has over 1.8 million members.
As you’ve probably already figured out, apart from the general idea of a group of humans pretending to be ants online, the main draw of this online community is the opportunity to escape all human issues and escape the stress and worry of daily life.
As a matter of fact, one of the rules that members of the group must abide by is never to discuss politics of human issues in general. The group is all about being an ant, helping the colony, and above all, worshiping the Queen.
The group’s newfound fame has moderators struggling to keep p with new requests for membership.
“We have so many user requests and pending posts that this has become a job for me,” Tyrese Childs, the group’s creator, told NBC. “I think people are searching for something to do right now. You can only scroll so much on social media.”
All members have to refer to fellow colony mates as “Ant-their real name.”
“The ant group sounds like a psychologically safe space to meander with nothing scary and nothing political and nothing coronavirus-related,” Andreas Lieberoth, an assistant professor of media psychology at Aarhus University in Denmark, said. “I don’t know if ants get COVID, but in this colony, they don’t.”
