Flattening the Like Button: why Facebook’s omnipresent thumb sticks in the eye

Welcome to the age of the Like.

Whether it’s the way in which we, like, speak to each other or the currently fashionable post-Siskel approach to film review — “Did you like Real Steel? I liked it, because, you know, it was really good.” — the word itself has taken total control over how we express admiration or praise for something.

And now with Facebook, you don’t even have to like something to “Like” it.

The social network’s indomitable Like Button is everywhere, from personal photos and status updates, to news articles, music videos and ads for new Fanta soda flavors. Yet while people who are genuinely thrilled by brands and commercials are more than welcome to like them, what about the rest of us who might have more complex feelings about this stuff? What if we like Jarritos just a little bit more than Fanta? What if we think movies about Hugh Jackman punching robots are fun to see with friends but bad for first dates? In other words, where do we turn when our taste options only leave us all thumbs?

Nowhere, apparently. The Like Button does not allow for subtlety, or degrees of enthusiasm, or shades of gray, or even dislike. You either like something or you have no opinion on it. That AARP ad on the side of your profile only comes with a Like Button, not an I Respect Elderly People But I Don’t Read Their Magazines Button.

This is a big deal. Why? Because our right to express in detail how much (and how little) we give a shit is disintegrating. Unless you’ve mastered the art of ironic Likes, or you actually comment to express what a waste of time it is to comment, there is less and less room for actual opinions.

It’s essentially a marketing technique that forbids negativity and finds a quick and easy way to tabulate everything else. If you don’t have something nice to say, you’re not allowed to say anything at all. And if you DO have something nice to say, please make it brief. Very brief. Like with this here button.

The Like Button also creates a warped view of brands. A company’s Like counter is a misleading numerical badge that showcases only people who clicked on it, which could have resulted from genuine fervor, a slip of the finger or outright boredom. You also have no idea where it came from. Did the Liker go out and find the brand, or were they bribed with discounts at Six Flags? Did 200 strangers all Like it, or did the CEO just send it to 199 of her employees?

And if you personally asked anyone who has used the Button if they honestly liked what they Liked, their answers would undoubtedly range from “Whatever” to “I tried to Like it seven times.” Yet to the peripherally-blinded Button, it’s all registered as the exact same expression.

These ways in which we can express our feelings for objects and ideas are ever-dwindling, and the Like Button’s brand of strangled expression, taken to the most extreme, becomes a sort of self-made prison:

“Don’t you see the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can never be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten … Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller.” – George Orwell, 1984

Okay, so it’s only a button. It’s not Big Brother. But the Like Button is still a frustrating device that can stifle our ability to communicate all the trillions of emotions that fall in and around “like.” That’s why it represents the scratched side of the coin in our age of convenience; the trade-off of having everything calculated and formatted and delivered instantly. When you move this fast, you don’t get as many opportunities to actually think about how you feel.

So if our communication is limited by the words (and buttons) we know and use, then shaving it all down to one big Like just oversimplifies the entire experience. I don’t know about you, but I don’t find much to Like about that at all.