So, the Sign Appreciation Society is a public group found on Facebook that, just like the name suggests, is all about appreciating signs in a collective manner.
The group isn’t even a year old and already it has a bit over 200,000 members—actually surpassed this threshold in the last week—who bring in around 50 new posts a day with 2,000 just in the last month.
Bored Panda reached out to the founder of the Facebook group to learn more about the society, the signs, and everything in between.
“The group is for the appreciation of signs. Seeing them in another way,” elaborated the founder. “Some signs are inherently intended to be amusing, such as, Warning: Do not enter unless you can cross this field in 9 seconds. The bull can do it in 10.”
They continued: “Others are humorous because they are unintentionally funny, be they misspelt, located in a peculiar place, ironic, mind-boggling, the image is confusing or can be seen in another light.”
"Others are just signs that people get a chuckle out of by not taking it literally or seriously, such as the warning notice on Ramganga River, posted by Peter Waanders, it had a 1.2m reach (2.9k shares, 380 comments, and 14k likes), the sign was simply about not swimming in a river with crocodiles but members found humor in it by thinking and looking at it from another perspective.”
#11
The founder went on to say that humor is a key part of the group–it is in its ethos to find a little fun, happiness, and laughter in that, which is often considered mundane, everyday, or purely simple.
The group’s biggest hit was a coffee shop sign that invited people inside because, outside, there were raptors. The reach on that one was 7.6M with 226,000 likes.
“The group membership is diverse and global, yet, on the whole, everyone gets along making quips, fun comments or tongue in cheek remarks,” elaborated the founder of the Sign Appreciation Society. “It makes for an interesting mix of view points. We have signs from all over the world, which is fab.”
A common theme we see with groups like this is that the Sign Appreciation Society too doesn’t allow for political or religious discourse–oftentimes, that gives a reason for obnoxious people to ruin everyone’s fun. And that’s what the group is all about, really: lighthearted sharing of the enjoyment of signs.
“Although SAS is not a comedy group, it is for fun, but not all signs need to be funny, we have historical and interesting signs and signs that some people appreciate for the sign in itself,” noted the founder.