“These new reactions aren’t contradictions, they’re all variations on that simple “I see you” of the “like.””
“Despite the recent changes at Facebook, the “like” has very little to do with the actual emotional content of a response. It’s a simple nod in your direction. But it also serves as the ultimate validating gesture.”
“If social media amounts to an existential assertion (I’ll spare you the Cartesian cliché), it’s left incomplete until at least one “like” enters the picture.”
“the effect is additive”
“The more “liked” a post or tweet is, the more present it becomes, and since online we are little more than the sum of our posts, the more real we feel ourselves becoming.”
“What results is a delicate balance between asserting yourself and not subjecting yourself (or your sense of self-worth) to too much exposure.”
“The “share” is the even bigger compliment. We’re not just there, we’re worth someone else using our content as a means of drawing attention to themselves—of putting themselves on the line.”
“Regardless of how we feel, we must first make that all-important commitment to feel something. And to feel that someone can’t be bothered to even process the content you put out there—whether it’s a tweet, a Facebook rant, or a longform essay—is one of the great quotidian disappointments.”
“But if the “like” remains the basic unit of reaction on social media—and therefore, of online life—then the most powerful force is indifference.”
“The need to be “liked,” as opposed to admired or well-regarded, is that same philosophy popularized, defanged, and accepted as a necessary part of mass culture. It’s akin to “any publicity is good publicity.””
“We might not care to admit it, but such cynicism has become the price of admission. There’s no value judgment, no good or bad, only a value-neutral proposition that precedes any actual opinion.”
“It may sound silly, but the more online culture dictates the way we think and feel, the more these frivolous realities become part of the fabric of our daily lives. We don’t translate language into emojis, after all, but embrace them as a language unto themselves.”
“seeing and being seen remain the only ways to feel like you’re participating in the first place. We don’t exist because we will ourselves into being—we exist because others deign to notice”
“All we can do is try our best to strike a balance between saying what needs to be said and caring too much about what others will “like”—which is to say, whether they “like” (and like) us at all.”