Using a complex internal algorithm, a team of data analysts at Facebook have been able to objectively determine that ... has the best posts of its 1.06 billion monthly active users. The finding was part of Facebook’s development strategy, which aimed to pinpoint the one Facebook poster that worldwide users would most want to see at the top of their newsfeeds. The analysts considered all of the key metrics of social media clickbait including quality of wordplay, cleverness of picture captions, ratio of share-worthy content to reshares, first-mover advantage [being the first to respond memorably to a news event or meme], and multi-demographic appeal. These data points were then referenced against each user’s reply-comment behavior, with points awarded to users whose replies were so witty that they themselves became the topic of the discussion thread.

The team was quick to defend the empirical rigor of its approach. “People often assume that we would evaluate the quality of posts based on ‘likes’ alone. Doing so would have been a gross oversimplification. ‘Likes’ might just indicate a user has a large network of friends, or is likeable for reasons other than the pure quality of his or her posts. In truth, many of the most liked posts are completely unoriginal garbage. It was against the backdrop of this garbage-heap that ...’s posts emerged as groundbreakingly smart and engaging.” In the head researcher’s words, “Simply posting a cute picture of a costumed pet, or generating the third best pun in a series of comments will not distinguish you from a truly expert poster like ....”

When notified by Facebook of his accomplishment, ... seemed relieved to have finally received formal recognition for the tireless mental effort he had invested into his brilliant epigrams. “It’s less about what you say, and more about saying it better than a billion other active users at any given moment.” According to Facebook, truer words have never been spoken.