They think we’re fat, stupid and highly sexed.

Now, they’re saying we’re not socially connected.

Seventy-five percent of the time, Fort Wayne just can’t please Men’s Health.

In the magazine’s April issue, Men’s Health ranked 100 cities in the United States based on how socially networked they are. The magazine looked at factors such as Twitter and Facebook use, time spent on blogs and in chatrooms, plus accounts on other sites such as LinkedIn, MySpace and Friendster.

The city’s lowest ranking? Facebook use, which helped contribute to the city’s 92nd place and its D- grade, wedging Fort Wayne right between Billings, Mont., and Bridgeport, Conn.

What’s up with that?

Men’s Health, contrary to what some insist, does not have it out for poor Fort Wayne, deputy editor Matt Marian says. This ranking, for example, means that Fort Wayne isn’t as linked up as other cities, which is not to say the city isn’t linked up at all.

“Even though cities finished low, that’s relative to other cities on the list,” Marian says. “(Fort Wayne is) not completely out of the loop. There are just other cities that are even more connected.”

The magazine’s view of Fort Wayne’s social networking savvy is one Chad Pollitt agrees with. Pollitt, of Huntertown, is the director of social media and search marketing for Kuno Creative, an inbound marketing agency based in Cleveland. He deals with social media for a living, and he says Fort Wayne could be much more connected.

Consider the city’s numbers on Twitter.

“I’d say the core might be 30, at the most 50, people that are highly active on Twitter and that add value to the conversation or create a conversation,” says Pollitt, pointing out that those numbers don’t include the 19-year-olds tweeting about partying.

In fact, Twitter Grader, a site that shows various Twitter statistics, can name the most popular tweeter in Fort Wayne, Pollitt says: Charlie Sheen goddess and adult film star Bree Olson.

But Fort Wayne does have its bright spots. Other groups have called out the city for some of its better attributes. In 2009, Forbes ranked Fort Wayne 67th of 200 cities in terms of best places to have a business or career. The ranking considered qualities such as crime rate and job growth. It came in fifth for cost of living and 12th for cost of doing business.

In 2007, Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal ranked the city No. 1 for minor league sports. Parents magazine called the Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo the fifth-best zoo in the country in 2009 and the second-best place to raise a kid last year.

Don’t feel bad

Jack Harris of Fort Wayne had 841 friends on Facebook as of Wednesday morning. He didn’t sign up for his account until December of last year, however, so he may not have even factored into the Men’s Health numbers. He uses the site primarily as networking for his gig as house drummer at the A&O Sweet Shop Tavern in Fort Wayne.

His background, however, is in psychology and sociology. Harris, 56, worked for eight years at Park Center, and he was able to dive a little into whether this kind of ranking can affect a city’s view of itself.

The short answer: Sure it can.

The concept of manifest destiny is true, Harris says. It means that if a person – or a city – is told something repeatedly, his opinion of himself will start to line up with that view. Tell a little girl over and over again that she’s not as good at math as the boys? She won’t be as good. Tell a little boy he can’t read as well as the girls? He’ll read at a slower rate.

This sort of ranking can have just that effect on a city.

Harris compares it to Fort Wayne’s most recent claim-to-fame, when the country asked itself, “Will Fort Wayne have a government building named after former Mayor Harry Baals?”

“It’s a joke,” Harris says, but “some people will take that kind of offensively and feel embarrassed about that. They might go to another city and say, ‘I’m afraid to say I’m from Fort Wayne because of this Harry Baals thing’ or because of these articles.”

That being said, Harris considers the idea of measuring connectedness based on social networking to be bogus. While it could affect the way a person feels about his or her city – especially while traveling – he doesn’t put a lot of stock into the survey.

Ways to improve

Marian, of Men’s Health, hopes to make this survey a yearly thing. Social media is such a fluid beast, and it’s so easy to improve one’s ranking, he says.

Pollitt has plenty of suggestions to help. For one, various companies can host meet-ups around social media. So a Facebook networking group could hold a gathering of people on Facebook or Twitter. It could promote it both offline and online, bringing in people who may not be involved with social media.

“And that excitement will encourage them to participate in those platforms,” Pollitt says.

He also thinks if some of the larger Fort Wayne brands get involved, others will follow. He suggests that a group such as the TinCaps host a social media night, where the first 500 people who pass on a particular tweet get a free hot dog or the like.

“That would encourage people to set up a Twitter account,” he says. “If brands in Fort Wayne, like the TinCaps, leverage social media, there can be that synergy that can help Fort Wayne utilize social media more.”

The thing with the ranking, Marian points out, is that it’s not necessarily a bad thing that Fort Wayne got a D-. The article includes an information box that says people can get addicted to social networking sites. Checking Twitter seven times an hour? There is software that will limit the amount of time users spend on various sites, and Men’s Health suggests downloading a program like CyberPatrol.

“None of this replaces face-to-face interaction,” Marian says. “Being very socially networked can be a bad thing if it’s at the exclusion of being front and center with a person. We’re giving (Washington) D.C. (which came in first place in the ranking) the benefit of the doubt assuming people aren’t avoiding face-to-face contact and shaking hands in person.”

jyouhana@jg.net