Favorites never fail to surprise me. People will favorite things I've said and I wonder why, and then something that I think is so clever gets nada. I can't decide which of the two scenarios I like more- I think I like them both the same.

And yes, I, too, salute those who have managed to eschew the nonsense.

I'll admit that it's ego boosting, and I'll admit that ego boosting is one of my many addictions. Comments that get multiple favorites are more satisfying generally since that means I've written something that actually resonates with many people. If it's only one...who's to say that one person isn't just some nut?


People will favorite things I've said and I wonder why, and then something that I think is so clever gets nada.

same here. stuff I labor and fret over is rarely notest, stuff I toss of for a chuckle or in a fit of pique is what gets favorited or flagged. Go figure.

I noticed "notest," if that makes you feel any better.

I think, and I'm not really clear on this, that in the long run I like the dribs and drabs, as sometimes I'll see a comment that has been fav-ed to death and wonder if it's just a pile-on effect. "oh 50 people liked this, I must like it too!". I know that's probably shallow ( :( ) but is how my not-quite paranoid/cynical self thinks sometimes. At least when one person favs it, they are sincere about it... even if they are a nut.

I feel like I learn a little bit about who is in the same humor boat when a jokey comment picks up a couple favorites—this guy appreciates puns, that guy digs poop joke, those two can get behind absurdist jaunts—but a bunch of favorites on one specific thing tend to reveal more of what makes (portions of) the whole membership thing tick.

It is in some ways dismaying that a jokey mefi-specific hackjob of a song will get a dozen or dozens of favorites while something I bled over a bit gets a couple comments and a favorite from my brother, though.

What I love about favorites is that it is fun and nice and completely meaningless and random. So I can hoard them and gloat over them now and then, but then remember that it's a little number on a little page that means NOTHING to anyone but me. Having a lot of favorites is like having good blood pressure: who gives a shit?

Like Pink said, you really never know what's going to get people's attention (positive or otherwise). But I like the litle clusters of two and three favorites, because in those cases I always click on those members' pages and see who they are and what they're all about, and try to guess why they favorited me, and thus I have learned a lot more about individual mefites through this little bit of contact. On the occasion that more people pile on, I usually don't get around to checking them out because I'm jumping around going OMG!OMG!OMG!!!

Just kidding.

Sort of.

itz not nise to mak fun uv de iliterit, modpupy. yer meen.

"modpuppy"! the mod part, heheh, melike.

I prefer one thing that gets a lot of people fav-ing, because they're rarer (for me).

Nthing the "I don't understand why some throwaway stuff gets faved, but my personal favorites get ignored" thing.

This is an example of one I found really perplexing. I was basically "verbally favoriting" jessamyn...I really have no idea why people would in turn favorite it. Bookmarking in case I'm arrested for stalking in the future?

I can't start favoriting, because it's just too much for my Blackberry-weary thumbs, and there's so much I don't see that I'd probably like better than what I'm favoriting, and because I'm too literal-minded. Favorite means something specific: what I like the very best; if I spread my favorite butter too thin, the whole sandwich tastes bland.

But I do notice when I have favorites in my profile, and I think it's pretty keen. I'm mostly a joker and a thread-shitter (a cutpurse and a scalawag), but it does me good to see that folks like my more reasonable contributions the most.

What can I say? I like to help, but I'm about to ruin.

Yea, danostuporstar, stuff like that, I don't get it. I had one today. That's LITERALLY me verbally favoriting something EB said- nothing else. And it's not even funny, like yours was.

Sometimes, I suspect other people favorite my comments because they hate them. Or there's an international, cross-user campaign to stalk me and use my snarky comments against me in the future.

vastly prefer one comment getting a lot of favorites, myself. i'm addicted to favorites, though, so I guess part of it is that I think "hey! maybe i can get a LOT of my comments to get this many favorites in the future!"

also, I agree with cortex's frustration. i, personally, am tired of the mefi lyric replacement fad, and i suspect it's largely because i'm never that cool.

also: cortex has a brother on mefi?

I had one comment favorited 25 times, and it was totally a throwaway comment. Go figger.

When I favorite other folks' stuff generally it's because they said something I wish I'd said, and said it better. Either that or I found it funny.

I don't favorite much myself (forget to do it, actually), and I don't pay attention to favorites, except in an occasionally bemused kind of way like Hermitosis mentions. What I like about AskMe is the 1 in 100 shot that still happens when someone asks an answerable question, and a number of good answers appear, which contain information, experiences or viewpoints that would never occur to me and my pal Mr. Google, just considering the question, as asked.

People answering the unposed meta-questions rock, but that's a tricky business. I enjoy it when someone really pulls it off, however.

French Fry, vocalist on Mathowie's Community Weblog, is my bro.

dano - I was one of the people who favourited that comment. I did it because it was funny and I agreed with it (the crush part).

I favourite comments because I either agree with them or find them funny as hell (or both). I favourite posts I really like or want to go back to at some point for research (or whatever - like recipes, etc.). There are lots of posts and comments I enjoy and don't favourite. They have to elicit a pretty strong response (in myself) to get favourited.

I have only one comment that's been favourited multiple times (six) and that was a nice ego boost.

I love everyone who has ever favorited one of my comments. Well, except those who have subsequently unfavorited. Heartless bastards.

Favorites are my anti-depressant! It's how I know people are laughing.

I am another guy who cannot figure out this favoriting system. MeFites are freaks; you can't predict what they're going to like.

The post I did on "The Tyranny of Structurelessness" was a total blowoff. I put it together in, like, fifteen minutes. "Hmmmmm . . . what's that old feminist essay I read five years ago? I'll bet it's already been on MetaFilter. Oh, no, it hasn't. Ah, fuck it. Why not?" I thought I'd get twenty responses, a lot of bland affirmations like "Nice post, j_p." and maybe one or two favorites.

And the fucker took off like a rocket.

I loved the post I did about The Traveling Rings of Santa Monica. I worked my ass off on that one, picking this photo, rejecting that video, deciding that this video should go first, then changing my mind and moving that other video up two spots.

I posted it and said to myself "this kicks ass. this one's gonna rock their world."

And the response was . . . so-so.

The favoriting system seems to drain off an old effect. When you worked hard on a complicated post like the one j_p just mentioned, in the past, you'd have no way of knowing how many people read it. Sometimes the best posts would garner just a very few comments: "Nice post," etc. Sometimes they're cool in a way that needs no discussion. However, what you'd sometimes see would be a small burst of activity in your contacts. A great post might bring a couple new contacts along.

Now that we have favorites as well as contacts, it seems like people put that connectivity energy into favoriting rather than contacting. Still, I recently listed as a contact someone who had favorited several of my comments.

Personally, I don't favorite comments and posts that actually are my favorites - I favorite ones I want to find easily again. Some posts are wonderful but I can't conceive of re-reading them or needing a quick reference. I'm afraid I treat 'favorite' a lot like 'bookmark.'

Thanks, deborah. I was hoping you'd chime in, but didn't want to, like, call you out.

I love getting favorites, but I don't tend to mark many of my own. When I do, it's usually as a sign of encouragement to the commenter, a quick "Yeah, what she said." But I prefer to do that in the thread itself, to agree with someone and then make my own points as well.

So I tend to take most people's favoriting of my comments as a similar "I've got your back" type of thing. Which may not always be intended, I realize, and which is due entirely to the fact that I'm often ranting about people being mistreated. I like the thought of being the mouthy one willing to argue publicly, with a slightly more polite back-up army of people who agree with me but don't want to put themselves up for ridicule. :)

The rest of the things I favorite usually involve ikkyu being amusing.

Also, when it became screamingly obvious that I would never catch up to ikkyu's favorited comment count, I stopped hinging quite so much of my ego on it. Still looking for other ways to compete with the man, though.... open to suggestions...

All I do anymore is troll for favorites. I quit posting serious things months ago. I'm still hoping for that shining jewel of a comment that's going to net me 100 favorites.

occhiblu, we need to buy a Scrabble board or something.