FIVE THINGS ABOUT THE ‘ANT COLONY’

The private Facebook group is titled “A group where we all pretend to be ants in an ant colony,” and nearly two million members do exactly that. “We worship The Queen and do ant stuff. Welcome to the colony.”

1 ANT INTRO

As long as you’re kind, avoid politics, don’t employ hate speech or bullying, remember that your name is “Ant-yourname” and always capitalize the first letters of the words The Queen, you’ll be accepted. That means when another “ant” posts a photo of food or an attacking insect, you respond in the comments with “Lift,” “Eat” or “Bite.” To a photo of a picnic with the caption “Human having a picnic what do we do,” more than 2,700 members post “Steal,” “Invade,” or “Bring to The Queen.”

2 DEEP-SEATED NEED

The group is fulfilling basic human needs during the pandemic. “We are social animals. We have a need to belong to a group,” said Erin Dupuis, a psychology professor at Loyola University in New Orleans who has studied the social benefits of playing massive multi-player online role-playing games. Per social identity theory we feel better when we belong to groups — no matter what kind of group that is.

3 TYPICAL TYRESE, HUH?

Tyrese Childs started the ant group in June 2019 after seeing a group in which millennials and Gen-zers pretend to be boomers, which led him to ones where people pretend to be cows and farmers. At first Childs’ only ants were a few dozen friends “who were like, ‘This is kind of stupid, but it’s pretty funny’,” he said.

4

ANT ADMINISTRATORS

“People are into escapism right now,” Dupuis says. “When we’re reminded of uncertainty, of death, we seek out groups more. We don’t do it on a conscious level.” There are now 100-plus ant administrators and moderators sifting through thousands of posts, weeding out human stuff.

5

BUT, BUT, SCIENCE!

Some ants post research on actual ant behaviour. “often, I struggle to get people’s attention and explain why my research is worth talking about,” said Ant-katie, also known as Katie Baudier, a postdoctoral research associate at Arizona State University who studies collective defence in social insects.“it’s an awesome place for a lot of social-insect biologists.”