I think this is the best argument for having a verb other than “like” being the button of choice for approving of something that someone does on the internet. A couple weeks ago a friend of mine posted a link to an article about how “Approximately 60 to 70 percent of the oil contracts in the futures
markets are now held by speculative entities” and not by companies that actually need oil. Clearly if this is true this is not a good thing (except for the investors) but the funny thing was that people who “liked” the article seemed to come off as approving of this practice of wall street investors doing stuff like this.
I don’t know that a “dislike” button is the solution but I refuse to say something like “Like me on facebook” because it just sounds so ridiculously needy. I think someone must have to have pretty low self esteem if they made a system such that nothing could be disapproved of. Eventually I’m not sure the internet could handle the cataclysmic impact a “dislike” button would create upon the fragile pampered egos of those accustomed to so much approval.
Like!
I often agonize about the semantics of this common thumb of approval. Your portrayal is fantastic! I feel just like that!
I guess there should be a button for those kind of things, or things like this could happen.
Hehe I hadn’t seen that one, but it’s perfect.
Hehe thanks, Niha posted a link to another comic that also illustrates the problem very well.
I think everyone’s been in that dilemma. If one of my acquaintences has just posted “oh no, my cat’s died and I’ve broken my leg”, then I’m forced to compose a whole comment about how much it sucks for them. Facebook should look at the Ravelry.com forum. There are about 8 buttons covering most situations. It wouldn’t be that hard to do, and it’d make FB much more fun.
P.S. My boyfriend and I are lurkers but we love your comics. =)
Thanks for reading, glad you like them ^_^
Much as I would like to see more options I suspect Facebook is going to vie for simplicity and keep the Like button system as is. Something else occurred to me. I wonder if usage of “unlike” has skyrocketed since Facebook added that button?
I think it’s just the pampered egotistical part of the internet that would implode on the creation of a dislike button. The older parts of the internet would probably be fine since they already have things like digg and reddit with two thumbs. Even YouTube has two thumbs. My research leads me to believe that Facebook is a horrible anomaly.