Lately, I’ve noticed an interesting, and some might say disturbing, phenomenon with the naming of new groups. It seems like everyday I read in the news feed about another group whose name contains the number 1 million in it. A few examples of these are 1,000,000 Bears Fans, I bet I can find 1,000,000 people who want FacebookIM, and I bet I can find 1,000,000 people who hate cancer, just to name a few. This would be fine, except for the fact that none of these groups has 1 million people in it. In fact, these groups don’t even have 100,000 members.

In my opinion, if you create a group with the number 1 million in it, or any number larger than 10,000 for that matter, you can count on not getting enough members for it to live up to the lofty title. Why? Some people won’t join because they don’t see the point, others may not join just to spite you. Or, simply, people won’t join just because it seems impersonal to be lost in a group among 999,999 other members.

Of course, regardless of why people don’t join, having five people in a group with 1 million in the name is just so ironic that it’s bound to happen.

So what’s my recommendation? Don’t put numbers in the name of your group. It’s much less embarrassing to have 63,573 members in a group named Bears Fans. The exception to this rule of course is the wildly popular 1,000,000 Strong For Stephen T Colbert, which currently has 1,455,477 members. This is one of the few groups that I’ve come across that has met or exceeded the goal given in its title.

Bravo, creators of the Stephen Colbert group. To the rest of you, next time, leave the numbers out.