Ted Nugent Does Not Understand How Facebook Works

Stupid, cowardly, racist, anti-Semitic, misogynistic, redneck perv Ted Nugent has blessed the world with his latest conspiracy theory, and it’s a doozy. In terms of the level of idiocy it displays, I mean. Not in terms of, like, being true or rational or plausible or whatever.

See, in a new interview with Detroit’s 94.7 WCSX, The Nuge makes this bold claim (transcript courtesy of Blabbermouth):

“Right now, Facebook claims that I have three and a half million Facebookers. I’ve got people deep, deep into government Internet security that admit that Facebook is lying. I have over twenty-five million Facebookers.”

Well, government Internet security is kind of in the shitter right now. So does Teddy have any other evidence that Facebook is deliberately downplaying the amount of followers his page has?

“Last week I posted a meme that just identified something real simple, that there’s gonna be a civil war… It was a joke — that somebody is talking about a civil war and one side has eight trillion rounds of ammo and the other side can’t choose the proper bathroom. It’s a joke, you goofball! I mean, didn’t anybody ever watch Richard Pryor’s movies? I mean, c’mon! So people went crazy with that. But I had almost twenty million hits. Now you don’t get twenty million hits if you’ve only got three and a half million followers. Do you hear me? [Laughs] So I’ve got tens of millions and I thank them all.”

Wow. There’s a lot to unpack here. The TL;DNR version is, Ted Nugent is a moron. The more detailed version is this:

• Ted’s claim makes no fucking sense. What does Facebook get out of lying about how many followers — sorry, “Facebookers” — Nugent has? What is their motive?
• Ted does not understand how Facebook (or social media in general) works. Three-and-a-half million followers is more than enough people to ultimately attract twenty million hits to a FB post. For one thing, when you share something on your timeline, potentially any of your friends/followers can see it — they don’t need to also follow Nugent to enjoy the gift of his spork-sharp satire. Or, put another way:

• This being the case, there is also the potential for people to become aware of Nugent’s social media posts because he’s a loud-mouth D-list celebrity. If he writes something dumb, the media will report on it, thereby potentially sending millions more people to go check out that post. So this does not prove anything.
• “I’ve got people deep, deep into government Internet security that admit that Facebook is lying.” And if you believe that, I’ve got an adolescent daughter-wife I’d like to sell you.
• Incidentally, Ted’s joke about transgender people makes no fucking sense, either. Liberals don’t have a problem deciding what bathroom to use. We’re the ones in favor of allowing members of the transgender community to use which goddamn bathroom they feel like. On a basic level, the mere fact that Nugent thinks there’s humor in this joke demonstrates that his IQ is somewhere in the single digits. I’m guessing a two, three tops.

So, in conclusion: if you’re one of the three-million-plus people who follow Ted on Facebook, please never reproduce. Thanks for your cooperation, dummy.