Facebook's Reaction Buttons Stress Me Out
by ParentCo.
February 24, 2016
Oh, Facebook. All we asked for was a dislike button.
Instead, you've taken the liberty of giving us a whole buffet of ways to feel about Trump memes and high school acquaintance's gym selfies.
I'm unenchanted.
For one thing, I have enough trouble figuring out what to do with my face when I'm talking to people in real life. Now I have to sort that out virtually as well?
We're being robbed of the simplicity of a tap of acknowledgement. Until now, it was really up to the recipient to unpack what we meant when throwing a blue thumbs up their way. We could throw shade, accolades, and hell yeah's all rolled into one. Now we have to explain ourselves? WHY YOU GOTTA COMPLICATE MY TIME WASTING, MARK?
These options are stressing me out.
LOVE
Now we have to quantify just
how much of an affinity we have for something? Is someone going to be offended that I simply like the 4,000th photo of their baby?
It was bad enough to accidentally like someone's "my dad died" post. Now I have to live with the risk of being one slip of the thumb away from loving it? And what about when photo stalking exes?! This is too much pressure.
WOW
When I use this sarcastically, WILL THEY KNOW?
HAHA
I could have been happy to continue living my life screen shotting the foolishness that spreads across my newsfeed and texting it to my BFF's. Now I could theoretically have 3 glasses of wine and regrettably HAHA all over the place? TAKE MY PHONE.
SAD
Oh. Great. Now my mother has an emoji to accompany her passive-aggressive comment on whatever parenting transgression I confess this week. And do we really need the vegans to have a way to express disdain for our BBQ joint check ins? JUST KEEP SCROLLING, VEGANS.
ANGRY
Have you all BEEN on Facebook lately? There is NOTHING that won't send some people into a fit of ire.
Someone was once so enraged by an essay of mine wherein I declared pets to be overrated and suggested that I would never provide my children with a family dog, that they sent me a message declaring I was a horrible mother and should be ashamed of myself.
Ok. Actually, maybe a simple angry face is a tool I can get behind.
ParentCo.
Author