If you’re still using Facebook just for catching up with long lost friends or seeing who got fat after high school, it’s time to move up to the big leagues.
Like Claus Drachmann, a 30-something teacher in Denmark who managed to get his country’s prime minister to hang out with him and his special-needs class via a random Facebook invite.
One day, on a whim, Drachmann sent a friend request to Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the country’s prime minister (Barack Obama‘s political equivalent).
“I found his profile during the election campaign,” Drachmann tells Asylum. “So I added him with a note of how important it was for students in Denmark to have role models like him.”
To Drachmann’s delight, the request was approved almost immediately.
The story is one of 25 tales told by Emily Liebert, author of “Facebook Fairytales: Modern-Day Miracles to Inspire the Human Spirit.” Keep reading to find out how the prime minister ended up at Drachmann’s school and what inspired the book.
Feeling ignited, the Denmark man decided to make another bold move by inviting the prime minister to his school to hang out with him and his class. This time, however, there was no reply.
Fast-forward two months — long after Drachmann had forgotten about extending the invitation. While sitting on the porch at home, he got a phone call from Rasmussen’s secretary saying the prime minister would be joining his class.
“Even though we’re a small country — 5.5 million people — the prime minister spending an hour with your class on an agenda-free walk-and-talk is not your everyday experience,” Drachmann says. “My students had a very cool experience with a very attentive prime minister and loads of bodyguards, press and photographers.”
After Rasmussen — who now serves as secretary general of NATO — wrapped up his time with Drachmann’s students, the two joined up with a group of the prime minister’s constituents for a three-mile jog through the park.
Facebook of Miracles
Liebert explains what motivated her to share such stories with the world: “I joined Facebook in the summer of 2008 because a friend of mine kept pestering me about it. At first, my intentions were purely voyeuristic … Then I got sucked in and really started thinking about the cultural impact of social networking.”
In addition to Drachmann’s story, Liebert tells the tale of a woman who shamed her racist alma mater into apologizing, another woman who joined Facebook to get info about her 20-year class reunion and ended up donating a kidney to a stranger, and a man who organized a worldwide march against FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia).