I've joined a few LINE groups in the past couple years, but except for some rare occasions, I've remained an observer much more than become an active participant in group conversations of many kinds.
Recently an event in one of my groups--the one consisting of my old junior high school classmates, however, had me totally hooked, day in and day out, clicking and typing, rooting and hooting, for nearly three whole weeks... What was that all about?
It all started with a simple request from one of our old classmates, whose daughter's musical band was in an online popularity contest that needed votes for support: ("Double Sweet" was the name of the band; one vote per person per day was the rule)
I jumped in, as many did, as vote #544:
Surprise!, another classmate of ours also had a singer daughter, whose new single just came out, so he invited us to enjoy and "like" it too:
We had two natural shifts for voting: As the day turned, those in Taiwan finished their voting, we in the US started ours:
Even the usual social media non-participant, the anti-faddist, non-trend-chaser type were fired up:
I took time to listen to and promote a radio music program hosted by yet another talented classmate of ours, while waiting for my target number to appear:
Friends and family were pulled in by some for reinforcement:
On a business trip to China, one was concerned he might not be able to vote from there (some websites, as well as LINE are blocked in China):
Yes he could and did:
A Twilight Zone moment came when one day our teacher in Taiwan voted, and three of us in US followed, one by one, at exact 10-minute intervals, with no premeditation or conspiration of any sort:
Using the statistics I collected, I did a mid-campaign analysis for the group: In 7 hours (during US day time) our candidate gained 100 votes, while her main rival gained only 5, evidence that ours had far superior foreign legion power than her competition did:
Some in the US set alarm clock to remind themselves to vote when a new voting day started in Taiwan:
We continued to play the game of picking interesting/milestone numbers for vote:
I waited patiently, then in one fell swoop I grabbed the number (6000) I wanted (I had registered two accounts to be able to cast two votes at a time, using one as a quick setup for the one I was after):
It's the last day of voting, I was staying up late to get the monumental #8000, but some people beat me to it, so I cast my last ballot as vote #8002 and went to bed:
As expected, we won by a landslide: 8118 to 6100 against our closest competitor
Some gave comments:
What a wonderful LINEing journey! No rude remarks, tiresome posting/repostings, "fake news" nonsense, bad taste jokes or videos, heated but useless political debates... just pure fun and excitement, camaraderie for a common goal, like a bunch of youngsters sitting in one same classroom we were some 45 years ago!
* Just in case you are curious, here's our classmate's daughter's song that won the contest, for the prize of becoming the official song of a town in northwest Taiwan:
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