Ryan Maifield parody page on Facebook draws inexplicable following

0 May 8, 2015, 2:40 p.m.

By Aaron Waldron

LiveRC.com

On August 27, 2014, a Facebook page was created for “Ryan Mayfeild,” an obvious misspelling of the former ROAR national champion Ryan Maifield. Whereas other racers have chosen “Public Figure” or another category under which to index their pages on Facebook, the creator of the page chose “Just For Fun” - further implicating the page as fake.

Though the page might seem mean-spirited at first, there doesn't seem to be any ill intention behind the page's creation - in fact, there doesn't seem to be much intention at all. Other than adding the description “Professional RC driver for TLR, Airtronics, Jconcepts” and uploading a version of Horizon Hobby’s original press image of Ryan with the RC Driver magazine watermark, the page sat stale for over six months until a studio image of Maifield’s TLR 22 2.0 with a RedRC watermark was uploaded as the cover photo.

Despite the obvious signs that the page is bogus (the real Ryan Maifield does not operate any social media accounts, personal or professional), over 2,600 RC racing fans have “Liked” the page - including TLR team manager Kevin Gahan. Seven messages have been posted to the page as well, covering the full spectrum of understanding.

Here’s Rich Muller from JConcepts:

This has to be a fake page. Look at the way his last name is spelled.

Posted by Mason Fuller on Monday, March 30, 2015

Other racers have figured out the ruse:

This has to be a fake page. Look at the way his last name is spelled.

Posted by Mason Fuller on Monday, March 30, 2015

Still, many are convinced that the page is real:

I've been a big fan for years! So glad to see you doing so well at TLR. Good luck at the cactus classic!

Posted by Chris Schmidt on Sunday, March 8, 2015

Though the first question may be to ask “why?” with regards to the motivation to create such a page (and then just watch it sit), perhaps of greater interest is the page’s staying power. Why would so many racers, many of whom know Ryan personally, choose to follow the account? It may turn out to have been started by a fan of Ryan's who simply didn't know exactly how these pages worked.

Former Team Associated teammate and Oklahoma racer Tyler Keel is among those who "Liked" the page, but admitted that he didn't know anything about it. "I have no idea," said Keel, "and it doesn't look real, but 9 million people liked it." Obviously, he was exaggerating.

After lying dormant for quite some time, the page saw yet another surge in activity this week, adding another 49 likes (a 104.2% increase over the previous week) to raise its total nearly 2%.

The 2600+ total likes on the page is significant when compared to real, regularly maintained pages. Early adopters Adam Drake (12,998), Ty Tessmann (8,631) and Ryan Lutz (6,220) may have quite a gap back to the fake Maifield page, but World Champions Ryan Cavalieri (4,280), Jared Tebo (3,964), and Brian Kinwald (3,003) have similar reach on the social media network despite posting regular updates.

The page also compares with this Public Figure page for Maifield that was automatically generated by Facebook, using outdated information from Wikipedia. Though this page, too, is not officially endorsed by Maifield or anyone involved with the Arizona-based driver, it also has 2,040 Likes.

A message sent to the “Ryan Mayfeild” page’s administrator was not returned within an hour. When more information becomes available, you’ll find the update here on LiveRC.

Ryan Maifield

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