Barack Obama wasn’t the only focus of attention at last week’s inauguration, Aretha Franklin stole some of the thunder with her memorable hat. Many fashion critics have spoken out against the hat and now Facebook users are sharing their thoughts about the hat via the Aretha Franklin’s Inauguration Hat fan page. Our fan page tracker picked up on the page late last week when it had around 17,000 fans.

As of today, the fan group has ballooned to over 73,500 fans, putting her among the top 3,000 fan pages that we’re tracking. Users have also submitted almost 1,000 photos of themselves wearing Aretha’s beautiful bow hat. The fan page description explains it all:

A glimmering vision of hope outshining the sun on a certain cold wintry day in January, tears of joy and the swell of optimism bursting from two million citizens’ hearts as they focus their expectant gaze in one direction… you know what we are talking about and that is why you are here. To celebrate this vision of change, this paradigm shift, this sparkling, glittering vision, yes… Aretha Franklin’s inauguration hat.

The $179 hat, customized with Swarovski crystals, came from Mr. Song Millinery in Detroit where Luke Song has been making ladies dress hats for 25 years. He wholesales his designs at many locations throughout the U.S., including Brasseur, Donna Vinci, Maxi, PJ’s, Hat Library, Jean Nobles and Pam Imports in the L.A. area.

There are almost 1,000 photos of users wearing Aretha’s amazing hat. My personal favorite is the one of George Bush wearing the hat. You can view all the photos in the photo album on the fan page. It just goes to show how Facebook Pages are a great way of monitoring trends within popular culture as seen through the eyes of Facebook users.