This morning I logged on my Facebook account to see another pet hate of mine, my news feed covered in information from certain fashion label group competitions. I mean the idea of holding a competition to get free stuff just from liking a picture or campaign is fabulous but when you see streams and streams on a daily basis, it makes you wonder, will we ever get sick of abusing the ‘like’ button?
Not only was it created in Facebook but now it seems to be on every single website that has some slight connection to the social networking phenomenon.
You can ‘like’ photos, statuses, wall posts, videos, groups, fan bases and reality shows. You can also ‘like’ your best friends profile picture, your ex boyfriend’s newly single relationship status, your university lecture’s ramble on journalism and a new photo of your next door neighbour’s dog. I mean the list is endless and the need to ‘like’ something goes on. But I absolutely despise it. Yes I am a Facebook addict and will clearly admit it but what happened to the old days of people actually opening their mouths, or putting their fingers on a keyboard to post something nice.
We do live in the technological age and I do love the feeling of waking up in the morning and checking my Facebook to realise I have 20 notifications of people ‘liking’ my photos but with one click of a button, we all fall into the same trap. No, it’s not like we are all a part of a cult but they don’t even give the other side a voice. What did the ‘dislike’ button ever do to someone?
For anyone that didn’t know, it’s not a new button. YouTube is a big fan of the ‘dislike’ button which is especially used on Rebecca Black’s revolting song ‘Friday’. Yes, 289,036 people have ‘liked’ it. If your mouth is still open as you can’t get over this, you will be pleased to know that 2, 172,602 people ‘dislike’ it. I don’t think by typing the number you can really get the gist of how many people hate this song. Two million, one hundred and seventy-two thousand and six hundred and two people physically with their finger or thumb have clicked ‘dislike’. Good on them I say and in no regards am I trying to bag out poor Rebecca Black. I am secretly jealous she can be so famous and rich at such a young age, just from a horrible song on YouTube. I mean, I know what I’ll be doing on this Easter long weekend.
Yes, I have taken advantage once or twice of the ‘like’ button. I entered my cat Tiger who is florescent orange and the size of a Rottweiler into Whiskers Cat competition. The winner, of course, had to have the most ‘like’s and would have their face (the cat’s of course) on the box of cat food. Did I also mention that the owner won $100,000? It was a little hidden incentive but I got behind Tiger and put all my ‘likes’ and my friends ‘likes’ to best use. We came pretty close to winning. Out of over 500,000 cats entered we came about 2,450 – unfortunately just missed out!
I am begging Facebook to consider the other end of the spectrum, the Twiddle Dee and Twiddle Dum of matches: to put forward the ‘like’ and ‘dislike’ button for all Facebook users. Don’t be rude and exclude one, simply add another button. Add a ‘dislike’ button equals more dislikes, more dislikes equals more notifications, more notifications equals happier Facebook users!
Just remember, when you see that cringing status update from the pimply, teenage girl about how in love she is with her boyfriend after dating for three days, think – where the hell in the world is the ‘dislike’ button?
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