Tags
Facebook, Internet, Meaning, Semantics, Social Media, Stumbleupon, Values, Wordpress
“I like this!”
You’d think a sentence like that would have a pretty clear meaning, wouldn’t you? If that whole 3 word sentence is a little complex, then surely the single word “like” must convey something pretty simple and obvious.
Unless it doesn’t.
But before I go on to suggest what I mean by that, let’s take a moment to note that that word alone is creeping (by itself even) into more and more of our public discourse. (Discourse? Now there is a word I haven’t used in awhile.)
It seems rather innocuous, the little “like” button underneath a Facebook entry, a Youtube video, or a post on WordPress. I can see another one right now up in Stumbleupon bar above the page I’m working on. I’ve long since lost count of the number of discussion forums that make use of similar conventions. Let’s not even get into the whole reddit thing okay! My point is that an awful lot of mass communication these days comes with the invitation to express our approval in terms of an upvote, like button, or some similar device. Ever greater portions of our news and entertainment now come with a prefabricated seal of approval just waiting for us to click yea or nay and thus to make ourselves heard.
…in a really limited way.
But what does our little click of approval mean? What these buttons mean to us and what they might mean to the websites that host them isn’t always clear. Often, the significance seems pretty obvious. You liked what you read, listened to, watched, or otherwise consumed. But sometimes, there is a twist to the content, something that skews the meaning of your approval. If you are reading a news article about a political speech you like, I’ll bet you are happy to give your blessings to both the speech and the article with a single click of a button. But what about a well written piece about a political speech by that fart-for-brains bastard you can’t wait to vote against? Well, then the ‘like’ button only applies to the article itself, right? …or do you refrain from clicking the ‘like’ button at all in cases like that? We don’t have a button that helps us to distinguish content from style or subject matter from the simple decision to call our attention to it.
And I’m sure most of us are familiar with the dilemma posed by a friend describing on Facebook something awful they’ve just experienced. Suddenly the like button just isn’t quite the tiny gesture of personal support that it has been for the last hundred or so mind-numbing left clicks we’ve executed while watching bad TV or not-quite-reading the memos at work. So, you sit there for a moment and think about it before telling yourself you better actually write something this time. And since it’s significant and personal, you’re going to have to think about it and choose your words carefully. …dammit!
But perhaps there is a sob-story in this too
I have 5 minutes of time to kill, and I want to enjoy it by reading funny stories from my friends and thanking them for it with a simple click of a button. I’m even happy to cheer folks on when they tell me good things about their lives. But now one of my close friends has just experienced a major tragedy, and she snuck a note about it into this stream of otherwise happy-and-light fluff I am using for my entertainment. Now I feel obligated to say something meaningful, and I’m really not ready to get all emotional, and fuck I only have 2 minutes left before I have to do something anyway, and I have no idea what to say. Fuck!
Presumably this sort of Facebook entry would create a similar tragedy for anyone with enough heart to know just how frustrating that kind of moment can be. The social niceties of liketry can be very complex. We need a button that says; “I don’t really like what you’ve just described but I like you and want you to know that I support you in your struggles, …at least enough to press a button about it.”
On WordPress at least, hitting the “Like” button a little akin to saying “Hey baby!” It is often a way of telling someone you exist and inviting them back to your apartment. Whatever else the ‘like’ button means around here, it is also a potential means of hinting that someone should come visit your own blog, where of course you hope they will read and like your own material. …which is what one will likely presume when you see that they have hit the like button underneath your own article.
…unless it means that they just want you to come back and read their new post.
The possibilities of mutually re-enforced self-deception here are astounding! Sometimes I think it is entirely possible that nobody is reading anybody’s work anymore, online or otherwise, or even looking at the pictures. Could WordPress be a community of illiterate button-pushers, liking each other in one great big orgy of self-referential liketude? …with nary a word ever making its way into a single skull!
I can’t think about it anymore; that way lies madness!
I suppose the fact that giving gestures of approval may be a means of getting them back didn’t exactly begin with the internet, but sites like WordPress have certainly re-arranged the economics of liketry in new and interesting ways.
By ‘interesting’ I probably mean ‘just a little sickening.’ …yeah.
I recently got a bit of an object-lesson in what it can mean to ‘like’ something on Stumbleupon. You see, when I first started using that service, I wasn’t entirely sure how I wanted to set my standards for liking a webpage. Was it enough if I liked something a little? Or did I want to be a hard-sell and like only the very best of the very best? It really didn’t take long before I realized that there are real advantages to liking more pages (more followers being chief among them), so I loosened up a bit, but I still insist on somehow keeping a trace of sincerity to the whole thing. I don’t ‘like’ things that I don’t actually like.
Seriously.
For the first month or so I followed my usual approach of restricting approval to those things about which I could voice clear and unmitigated approval. I ‘liked’ only those things which I really did like, completely and unreservedly, from the bottom of my soul, …or at least my liver. I held back from approving many thoughtful articles on a range of interesting subjects because I had a problem with something in the third paragraph of this one or the specific language used in expressing a minor point in that one. Pictures on the other hand? Well, I found quite a few of them to be like-worthy, not the least of reasons being that I’m not a photographer. I wouldn’t know how to pick at them if I wanted to, …well not that much anyhow. The point is, that I liked a lot of pictures.
Of course the thing about Stumbleupon is that the site shows you more of what you like and less of what you don’t as you establish the difference by clicking those buttons. So, I suppose I should not have been surprised the that thoughtful articles on religion and politics answered the call of the stumble button with ever decreasing regularity, or that they had been replaced with images of kittens, sunsets, and street art. The more time I spent on Stumbleupon, the less useful information I got from it.
I figured this out when I heard a strange and stupid voice saying; “this site is useless for anything but lolcats!” The voice was of course my own. A moment later, I think I called myself an idiot.
At least I should have.
Because of course I had been telling the Stumbleupon site to supply me with frivolous content all along. Every time I hit the ‘like’ button I was effectively saying “more of these please.” And since I was only saying that when I looked at things about which I had few serious concerns, I was pretty much telling the software demons at Stumbleupon to keep it light and fluffy when they chose my content.
Once I figured this out, the remedy seemed rather obvious. If I wanted to see more interesting material, I was going to have to give a pass to the next pretty scene and (more to the point) swallow at least some of my reservations long enough to say ‘yes’ to a opinion piece or three. I made the adjustment, and today I am finding the material I get from Stumbleupon far more interesting than I did at the end of my first month on the site. I simply had to stop thinking of the ‘Like’ button as a sign of ultimate approval and start thinking of it as a sign of general interest, or even an outright request for more of the same sort of content.
Of course that wasn’t the end of my adjustments. I find that my likes page at Stumbleupon includes articles I really don’t agree with at all, but which I might want to read again, anyway, or to reference for purposes of one of my classes. Somewhere along the line it dawned on me that I could use my Stumble account as a kind of caché for anything of interest to me in any way. So, the ‘like’ button on Stumbleupon no longer means as that I actually approve the content at all; it means that I am interested in reading it again. Sometimes it means I dislike the content of an article enough to want to come back to it, …probably to pick a fight of some kind over the matter.
So, I guess I do ‘like’ something that I don’t like, which is a fact that I don’t like at all.
…I need a drink.
Lest you think this ramble is entirely about the trivialities of internet liketry, I should say that the whole Stumble incident has me rethinking my overall philosophy of likalism. yes, it is. I’ve always been reluctant to place my stamp of approval on most anything in life, and I can’t help thinking this business showed me something interesting about the mental landscape that produces this pattern. Perhaps, I’m a little to prone to hold a flaw or two against the overall value of an otherwise interesting work. Would it be wiser to think of my approval less as a pass on the problems and more as a sign of interest?
Perhaps.
Then again, I’m not much sure if I like what I’ve just written. I mean what the Hell? Somewhere in here I touch on some really interesting questions (or so I thought) about how the net skews our sense of meaning and commodifies approval, …and then I end up with this quasi-self-help lesson. I hate self-help lessons! Seriously, how the Hell did I veer so far off the path on this one!?!
If I were y’all, I wouldn’t like this post.
northierthanthou 
I suffer from much the same ailment. Sometimes you read a piece that is carefully thought out, well written, but about some douchebag who’s opinions you find questionable. What should I do? Do I hit the like button because the author has done a good piece, but at the same time give a like to the dreadful opinions of said douchebag?
Of course we all love to have people take a look at our own work (even if they never hit the like button) but should we be so easy to click the like button just for a quick fix?
I try to be honest and only click like if I enjoyed the post.
I don’t think it would be easy to have a large set of buttons for different aspects of each post (composition, content, opinion, etc.) and have people clicking each one and later have a grade for the post. Many people would not go for that.
Maybe we could have “like”, “dislike” and “interesting” buttons on webpages or if you use a web browser like Safari you could just add pages to your Reading List to view them at your convenience, without have to express like or dislike.
By the way, I was tempted to hit the like button, but since you advised against it…
I wouldn’t really want a bunch of buttons either, but an “Interesting” button would be an interesting option. Sometimes I really do find an article interesting, even if I don’t agree with it. I think it was something like that that got me started on this post, some piece I ‘liked’ even though I would never have supported its content. …plus I have been reaping the benefits of my new approach to Stumble and thinking about how that conscious change in approach has affected my experience of the net recently.
It’s funny, on WordPress I still try to like only things that I actually do like. I started to surf a lot of the art and photography stuff when I began trying to promote my blog. I knew I’d find stuff I actually do like that way and I could surf right past the stuff that didn’t look interesting. I have really enjoyed that part of the project, which is why I do an awful lot of it. Surfing image has definitely become an end in itself.
And that’s one of the side-benefits to blogging. I’ve met a lot of people and read a lot of stuff I never knew I would be interested in. I suppose it’s also a way of participating in parts of the world out-of-reach much of the year. When I am sitting here in my tiny apartment on stilts looking at the frost build on my window, I can read about what someone is doing in Chicago or look at pictures of Texas.
Written texts, well that takes work. When I surf topics like politics, news, or religion I am looking for information or opinions, and I click the like button on WordPress a lot less often when I am reading an article than when I am looking at a picture. On Stumble I am more likely to hit the like button anyway, just because that stores the article in a place where I know it will be. (What suck about that is that my ‘like’ then becomes a means by which the disliked piece is promoted. …euw!) Anyway, like means two different things to me depending on which website I am dealing with.
I am at least seventy-three percent more likely to “like” anything by someone I imagine I would enjoy having sex with.
Lol, …no comment.
I liked this post because it was well written and echoed my thoughts about the reasoning behind the way some people use the like button… and for no other reasons than those (you are not invited to my apartment and I will not be sad/disappointed if you do not check out my page or like one of my posts in return). Great post.
Thank you, but I must say that I took a trip to your blog anyway, and i was not disappointed. Couldn’t find your apartment though; it might be a long walk.
LOL. Yes Alaska is a tad far away from Quebec. Thank you for the virtual visit, though.
Awesome. Question everything. When we do that we understand the social contracts that we enjoin ourselves to, even if we don’t ‘like’ them so much.
Nice post. I’m looking forward to more.
thank you, and it;s good to see you again.
I ‘like’ hearing about your side of the world, but couldn’t ‘like’ this post. You see I have intermittent brain fog & short term memory issues……..really.
In fact at it’s worst, my cognitive function is downright abysmal (had to look that word ‘abysmal’ up in the dictionary ’cause along with my intermittent memory lapses, I’ve forgotten how to spell common words & need to use a dictionary these days. The fact I use a dictionary instead of looking a word up on the internet or doing a spell check tells you how old I am).
Anyway, what was I saying……………………oh yes………………..I’d only got part way into your post when I realised I couldn’t remember what you were writing about. I completely lost the plot of your post and never, ever DID get to reading the other 90% of it……….hence me not being able to press the ‘Like’ button.
(Big Grin)…..I said that because I’ve never worked out how to get Emoticoms into a comment on someone’s blog, so I have to keep typing (Big Grin) in a comment………..or should I have typed LOL ?
Well, I’m smiling anyway !
It was more of a mosaic than a focused argument anyway; you didn’t miss much. But if I too use real dictionaries and lose track of common words, is that a bad sign?
Yep.
You write well and seem to have a good comment of words so if you start forgetting how to spell them (& I’m talking about common words which you could previously spell easily), then I would be concerned if I was you.
Or is it that everyone really does use a dictionary to find out how to spell common words & is too embarrassed to admit it?
Probably.
I think you usually get more likes on your blog entries than the nine so far. Maybe your questioning of ‘like’ has frightened a few people off. ; ) unsure of how their likes will be taken.
It is probably a bit simpler for visual blogs, where if you like an image/artwork/etc it is a pretty straightforward subjective choice about how the visual made you feel. I think where words are involved, and opinions in particular, the like landscape gets a little bit more hazardous. And to be honest a little headache-causing. How long did it take to untwist your brain after writing this blog entry?
A girl I went to school with died recently and I found out via Facebook – I didn’t hit the Like button. A friend’s dog died – I didn’t hit the Like button. A friend shared that they had a blister on a bunion that burst – I definitely didn’t hit the like button (I didn’t even need to know this so why post it!)
Are we all approval seekers? Can we blame our parents for this one too?
Thought provoking post. Thanks.
It’s funny I wondered how people would react to my last line, but bloggers can be a defiant bunch, so we’ll see. I think you’re right that things are different for visual blogs. I takes awhile to read a post and ensure that you really do like it, but for me anyway, that feeling is instant when looking at a picture. I do wonder if professional photographers and artists might find it more difficult than I do as they have more to think about. What do you think? Do you spend a lot of time analyzing a visual?
My brain still isn’t untwisted from this one. I really was frustrated that I didn’t get far into some of the questions I was thinking about. Seriously, I do wonder just how foolish we may be to produce these records of our taste for who knows who and what they will do with that information. My treatment was light and superficial, precisely because I’m not sure how much deeper I can get without drowning in the subject myself.
…at least given my present understanding.
After reading your comments, I somewhat regret my treatment in the FB example. I know what I was getting at, but maybe I was missing a lot more. I could have better framed those comments at the very least. So, thank you for throwing a little cold water on that fire It was well deserved.
Hey Daniel, no cold water thrown your way. That is a problem with words sometimes – meanings/intentions can be misconstrued.
I’m pretty much with you on this Like business, just thinking the whole like thing through probably in the way I think you did as you wrote this one. I have squirmed a few times over whether to Like or not, especially when the FB friend isn’t someone really close. Close friends get a phone call, FB friends get a like… that is the way it seems to work. I will be more worried when I decide not to make the phone calls anymore. Thanks again for making me think about this one.
Elaine
Thanks for the tips on Stumbleupon – haven’t used it but would have an idea how to now.
Just a couple more quick tips. Stumbleupon can be really powerful, but it’s a long term project.
Be careful not to trip their spam-sensors at Stumble. The machine will kick in automatically and then you are out of luck, for awhile at least. It’s best not to pump your own material more than 10% of the time (I keep it to less than 5%, might be closer to 1%). So, start slow, build a few dozen likes before even submitting any of your own content, and then take it easy after that.
Also be careful about liking a lot of WordPress sites as that will make you look like a spammer too. It’s hard to get followers, so get started early. You can add up to 25 people every day to a maximum of 500 and a small proportion of them will follow you back, very small. Messages are tricky and get few results, but I think visiting the likes page of someone you follow helps (because then you show as a visitor if they care to look). Once you get to 500 you could delete people (or at least people who haven’t followed-back) and add new ones, but that’s a little too much work. for myself, I am just adding to the likes page. I get someone new every so many days, and that will do.
It’s slow building a Stumble account, but it can really help promote your blog site. I have less time now to do that for myself, so I am hoping to rely on Stumble. It does have one other advantage in that it can help you find interesting content, which was the final point in my post. By thinking of it less as a high standards form of approval and more as a this-is-what-interests-me sort of message you can really turn it into a neat information delivery service. Independent of its value to spread the word about a blog, it really can be a fun way to surf. I’ve found some really great stuff through stumble; things I never would have known to look for.
Snow rollers for instance.
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2yFDwk/www.wrh.noaa.gov/otx/photo_gallery/snow_rollers.php
This is great info about Stumble…. even though I’ve been on it since 2009 I hadn’t really spent any amount of time checking it out or how to use it until now.
That’s where I found your site. I’ve always been a wordpress.org user and have now started using wordpress.com as a place to share things I’m into personally.
Although I’m an author on two other marketing blogs it doesn’t always fill my need to randomly writing about anything that takes my fancy instead of online marketing posts.
I liked your post because I really liked your post… 🙂
Great post! I “like” your idea of an “interesting” button. 🙂
My finger has certainly paused mid-air trying to define my intent for that little “like” button, brain freezing it while it spins like that obnoxious whirling mac thingy. I do try to keep the like frequency low and if I am intrigued, challenged or pissed I want to use my words. This more so since I started blogging and realized how much I appreciate comments as opposed to likes … and how hard it is to get them.
I liked your post in spite (or because) of your order to not to.
Great comments, Daniel . . . even if they ARE in mosaic form. Put me in the camp of hitting the “like” button when I genuinely like the “thrust” of the piece — regardless of agreement with the content or writer. For instance, being a Christian, I don’t always agree with (or “like”) your conclusions, but I quite often “like” your thought process, or your argument . . . and sometimes even your conclusions. 🙂 It’s quite often a case of, “Ah ha, I see how you came up with that . . . cool . . . ‘like’ ”
The “follow” button . . . . aahh, there’s a whole ‘nuther subject!!
Here’s how I reacted to your last line: “Hmm, I wonder if anyone else had the guts to defy him and like it.” And sure enough, there are contrarians out there (of course). I, however, am too much of a rule follower to “like” this post. Thus, a comment instead, as a small message to you that says, “I read this and found it interesting enough to leave you a comment, to keep you writing such things.”
I don’t really know anything about stumbleupon but it sounds as though you’ve mastered its filtering system, even if it means you have refit the Like button to mean something it shouldn’t.
As I understand it, most sites today use personal filtering of some sort, tracking our Internet habits and history to help decide what ads to show on sites, what results to display in Google searches/on the front page of your favourite news site etc. The downside being that most people have a set browsing routine, visiting only a few select sites and topics, to the point that they only see what reinforces their own views, rarely being exposed to important news and differing opinions that can be beneficial to personal growth. It seems you have encountered a similar thing with stumbleupon. I may be failing to explain myself well in a single paragraph but I read a book a year or so ago titled ‘The Filter Bubble’ by Eli Pariser that explains the phenomena much better. He also did a TED talk a while back.
I’d like to say I see WordPress as different because the topics one reads is a result of conscious decision-making, not influenced by likes clicked or previous posts viewed, but really, I’m at a point where I just read the blogs I’ve followed and rarely seek out new ones.
Also, I hate serial likers. My posts occasionally end up with more likes than views – so you aren’t fooling me! You’re just clicking Like in the blog feed without reading the posts. You know who you are!
I apologise in advance, I liked your post. Hesitated for a while, but I must admit but I’m not one to listen to instruction very well. I’m gonna ‘like’ a well-written post if I choose to!! However, by no means am I inviting you to my apartment either (even if you want to get here, it might be quite a trek). I really enjoyed that little ramble – a good ramble – and agree that after a while, a drink might’ve been necessary. We are all responsible for being a bundle of self-contradictions.
Thanks for popping by my blog, and for the enjoyable read!
Maybe we could invent new “Like” buttons to better approximate complex human responses, but then you might as well comment. I “Like” this thoughtful article enough to reblog it. Thanks for writing about something that has always seemed absurd.
Reblogged this on Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay.
I liked this because I have a strong sense of irony, but now, now I’m not so sure…..
I am coteaching with a teacher who has decided that the way students can tell him if they understand is by indicating this with a thumbs up. However, everyone gives him the thumbs up. Who in their right mind would admit otherwise and have everyone look at them silently saying, “What is wrong with you?”
I’m fairly promiscuous with my “liking” on Facebook because it helps people’s posts be more visible to other people. Really hate it when I post something and it seems to fall into a black hole without a trace.
On WordPress, I only hit “like” if I actually like something, but I also let my bar be fairly low — because, again, I think people like to know that other people are reading their posts. I prefer to leave comments, but I don’t always feel like I have anything substantial to say.
But I do wonder about some of the “likes” I get on my posts. Pretty sure they are of the “hey, I’m here” variety.
I wonder how I get more likes than views on some of my posts.
I must give you points for inventing the word “Liketry.” Genius.
I tend to like a lot of fluffy stuff, too, but I think that may not be a bad thing. As one of those people who was sort of born 40, I worry a lot and have been told repeatedly to lighten up. Facebook provides a way to get in touch with my inner airhead.
Like!
Hi
Found your comment section I am very new to all this so finding my way around is tortuous. You, however, have obviously been around for a while and using all sorts of terms like Stumble upon, Reddit, etc which I have no idea what you’re talking about. However, you obviously are an expert so will revisit and learn from you. I also found the liking article very interesting. Yes I did!! Am just beginning to understand the hidden agenda, but hey, you found me, you liked me, I found you, I liked you. We made a connection.
Have a good day.
Corinne
A timely piece since I found you via your “like” on my kitty blog post. LOL. Am “liking” your post because it is so awesomely analytical. Oh the angst that a simple LIKE button can bring!! (also, have found myself in the very same “to like or not to like?” dilemma many times).
A few other buttons would be useful. In the case of bad news on FB I never click “like” but leave a comment. I think it is horrible to “like” bad/sad news. Robotic of people to press it. Maybe just “seen” button would be useful.
I enjoyed the covolutions of this post. I have come to think of likes as being a way for people to note that they have been to a post. Writing a response doesn’t always suit so the button stands in. Of course the reader may have liked it .
I click the LIKE button to let people know that I was here, not necessarily because I liked the post. The only time I don’t click the LIKE button is when I don’t read the blog post in its entirety. For example, as soon as I hit foul language, I skip the rest of the post and move on without hitting the LIKE button. You are the exception here. I quit reading when I got to the F word, hit the LIKE button, and left this comment.
I also don’t hit the LIKE button whenever the post is pure religion, usually a quote from The Bible or something. I just don’t enjoy reading overly religioius posts.
Liked this post because it got me thinking and debating with myself and questioning why I dislike the word like and what would be an alternative. Perhaps its mediocre limpness is what makes it so suitable although I don’t react to something because I like it but because I really like it a lot. There is a great Dutch word which could do the job admirably if only everyone understood Dutch. The word is Bewonderen – to look with respect. Although Admire has the same meaning it just doesn’t have the same sense of innocent awe.
So I bewonder your Blog and every time I hit the Like button you will know what I mean.
I already clicked like, but that didn’t seem enough. I really liked this post. I liked that you put into words one of my frustrations. I often hold back from liking and I often think I’m making the act of liking more complicated thanit should be. In any event, I liked your post and especially one of your words: liketry. I like it so much that I will use it in a sentence today.
Reblogged this on Perpetual Learner and commented:
I like this! …with one or two reservations (some use of vulgarity). Which is why I generally agree with the author.
I clicked the Like button to show you I liked your blog about liketudes, liketry and likality, not that I like the trend toward computers only showing us what they predict we’ll like.
I know with Facebook, the trend has been for a computer to try to analyze which people are meaningful to us and show us their content. So it only shows posts from certain people you interact with most. That’s stupid, the reason I got involved with Facebook originally was to see posts from ALL my friends. It used to be easy to see evryone’s most recent status update, now it’s hard. As you found with Stumbleupon, once you start showing preference, some computer gets to decide that it’s in some way meaningful and tries to fit you into the box its programmers say you fit in. It leaves no room for growth and becomes frustrating, to be sure. Thanks for helping voice that frustration.
BTW are you planning a sequel for the Favorites button? 🙂
Huge part of the “like” crowd. I’m a firm believer that if you try to find the good in everything, you begin to like everything 🙂 I hate to sound cliche, but life is too short to be unhappy.
If you can figure out why I liked this post, please enlighten me as to me reasons 🙂
Thanks for this. Even though it was a long read, I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks this way. Keep up the good work.
“Like” is about as useful as “Nice”. I click it all day. The reason I do that is to let the blogger know I was there. I do not click anything that I have a real aversion to, however. I read few opinion blogs anyway. Now, if you hadn’t clicked like on one of my Fuzzy Foto posts just now, I would have forgotten to visit you. And, I ALWAYS (yeah, caps) enjoy your posts and agree with you 99% of the time. I hate the “like” button. I wish we had a “Hi” button. Of course, the reason we’re complaining is that we don’t want to spend a few seconds entering a comment. I don’t surf from one blog to another anymore. I visit my favorite blogs and spend perhaps an afternoon reading backwards until I reach the last post I read before. Since senility has crept in, I forget to visit blogs that I really do LIKE. Come around when you think about it and click so I can follow you back home! I love seeing that wonderful face anyway. I won’t hold it against you when you click… 😉
I “liked” this post on FB just to throw a twist into the whole thing 😉
OK, so I’m a new blogger. Went to BC and fell in love, literally, with the land, the wildlife. Want the rest of the world to love it too and to want to protect it the same way I do. It has ecological issues, what part of the earth doesn’t? Why do I care about this corner more than where I currently live and more than the starving people in africa?
There is something pure about it there I guess.
I love that you LIKED my pictures since you seem discriminating. I used to take pictures so I can look back at my awesome life and now I find I want my pictures to help others to know about and care about this spectacular place and the wild things that live there.
But what a funny view of the whole ‘like’ thing. I haven’t even figured out how to find other people like you unless you visit me first! (I am a social media idiot!).
but I do LIKE this post. And l LIKED the polar bears. They are just another wildthing getting the short end of the human stick.
Gotta say that (1) it’s a well-thought out post, and (2) I use the like button on FB often without a comment. But I usually comment on a blog post if I liked it and read (most) of it. I don’t pay much attention, generally, to people coming on my blog and liking it, since I have no idea whether they actually took a minute to see if they, in fact, did like it. But, as with the case here, if I have time I’ll go to their blog and see if it’s up my alley. In other words, if it’s a foodie, I just ignore it. If it’s by someone like you who writes about science, nature, independent travel, or other interesting stuff, I will read a post or two, then comment. Like doesn’t have much meaningthese days, being way overused, It is meaningful when used person to person, and said with feeling.
Many people do not realize the significance of a ‘like”. The concept is rather deeper than the single word notes.
Behind the scenes a lot of processes are in motion. That little button means dollars to many companies.
That is the only explanation for a company as huge as Exxon wants to be “liked”. It is the ultimate free advertisement medium.
You could not pay for the results of being liked.
Interesting post reflecting on the “likes” we choose. I’m glad you chose to “like” a chestergardenclub post ’cause otherwise I wouldn’t have found yours, and I enjoyed reading several of them already. So there! And keep those rambling reflections coming. Alaska is a long way from NS but I have been there as a tourist and was very well received. Beautiful wild country.
Thanks for pushing my button 😉 Anything on emoticons?
Thank you for visiting. I don’t have much to say on emoticonsm, but I have an old online friend that loves them. Maybe I can ask her to write something about them. It’s an interesting concept.
Really like, vs the easy-click “like”; really a proven-over-time friend, vs the easy-click “friend”… real, vs the commercial-product version. You’ve written a thoughtful, incisive post, to which I choose to respond with a comment, and not a click… (though, the easy-click “like” can coincide with a genuine like, which it would in this case, but in honour of this post, I’ll stick to a comment only — and I’ll stop now, because my brain is beginning to hurt!)
Before to hit the Like button I think: Do I really want my followers read this post or not? In this sense, StumbleUpon is a big casting and we are the jury.
This is an interesting post in so many ways. I generally like posts that I agree with and may not have much to say at the moment or at all.
I think a few people still read posts but I suspect there are those who don’t read. I have on occasion posted a long blog and a minute later someone has liked it. Were they waiting just for it?
Other times I question why some people like posts I have written. I on occasion write critically about religion and I find religious people liking this posts. Is it their way of showing displeasure? Or do they want to revisit it at a future date or are they hoping I may read their blogs and like a few? I don’t know.
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