Wednesday, September 28, 2011

LIKES


What's all this stuff about LIKE? Is it Facebook-itis, a tweeting virus we've caught from reading and writing and responding to comments, little summaries, adages, photos, film clips?

Is LIKE all we need to do, in order to respond to words, ideas, moods, philosophies, projects, products that people are proposing?

Click LIKE what? The candidate, the Author, the seller, the inventor of whatever it is, is rewarded with a LIKE, which in Internet terms, is MONEY?

No.
APPROVAL?
Sort of ...
So LIKES are building a career?

Not specifically. LIKES are primarily a promotion of yourself. If you say something that people like, others notice, and add their LIKE to the other LIKES, and thus, you're accruing a name and with a name you can teach, preach, beseech each and every friend to send you more friends, more followers.

I'm thinking we need LIKES to be in various colors, or degrees..."like" a lot, "like" a tiny little, a ha ha LIKE, thrilled LIKE, scared LIKE. Also, LIKES plus an um, ugh, eek, pooh, yuck --maybe even a LIKE spelled backwards ...an EKIL

I have to admit I'm bored with "like" as a measure of anything these days. It's too easy to "like." It's not even as satisfactory as a hello, or a hi.

Actually, I dislike LIKES. And now we're getting more and more interactive LIKES. Tell your favorite commentator you LIKE his show? LIKE that singer, that dancer performer? LIKE that ad? that movie? It's as if everything is in a beauty contest and you are involved with picking who's got the best legs.

Gee, wouldn't it be wonderful if "likes" could get us out of the political doldrums, and between now and November 2012 we could text in, email, Tweet, Facebook share our "LIKES!" (Hey, Apple or Google would probably develop and sell us some sort of hack-proof security system that knows, recognizes, real LIKES, lying LIKES, and truthful, heartfelt DISLIKES.)

Then, wow! On November 6, 2012, we will go to a booth, and pull or punch a lever based on what we feel -- not like -- what we know is right.

5 comments:

Claude Bouchard said...

I 'like' this. :)

Anonymous said...

Dear Emily: I agree with you that the "Likes" has gotten somewhat out of control these days. I do find myself hitting the like button alot on my friends postings on fb. But, I would like see "likes" with emotion attached like on my windows mode. There, I just used like 3 times in that sentence! Lol! one thing I do know is that I 'LIKE" your blogs!
kam Kathleen Ann McGee

Carola said...

I can picture those Facebook guys sitting around in a circle trying to figure out what to call the Like button: "Shall we call it Thumbs Up? Positive vote? Favorable?" How far back in the history of Facebook does the Like button go? Was it there when they first started it as a way to rate Harvard freshman girls?

Darlene Steelman McGarrity said...

I love the "like".. it let's me let the poster know I dig something, but I don't dig it enough to write a comment. Sometimes I am just too tired to write a comment.
"Ugh, I have so much to say about this post!"
I know, I'll just "like" it.
Bang. Done. On to the next post.

Linda Phillips said...

This is so true Em!