Facebook has announced it is considering introducing a ‘Dislike’ button — to sit alongside it’s now famous ‘Like’ thumbs up…
We’ve long watched comments rise up asking ‘how do I like this, but not like it?’ when it comes to showing support for an ethically questionable subject on Facebook. Cyril the Lion for example — when people saw those images they wanted to lend their voice and their support to those shining a light on such a dreadful story. Yet clicking ‘like’ feels desperately out of touch with the real feelings behind the action.
It’s worth remembering that The FaceBook was a version of ‘hot or not’ — a place to check out who looked good at neighbouring universities. So the idea of a ‘dislike’ button makes sense and should come as no surprise. Equally, if you look at the latest masterful story from Pixar, ‘Inside Out’ it’s not the happy characters you expect that play pivotal roles, it’s the more complex emotion of sadness that makes the journey worth taking. So likes alone are missing out…
There are many factors at play in the decision around the introduction of negative thoughts to a platform that has seemingly admirably stuck to ‘good vibes only’ method of rapid interaction with content. One must be how brands will react to moving from counting up the likes, and comments — to having to disclose and include ‘dislikes’ in their results meetings. This will surely begin to make Facebook a less attractive place for the worlds leading brands to inhabit.
Clearly, it’s always the case that brands strive to create ownable actions.
Nike circles around empowerment and spontaneity — Volvo is swaddled in safety — and for FaceBook the world of likes helped them pull away from the crowd. Instagram too shies away from negative iconography, choosing their heart to be firmly worn on their sleeve. So the introduction of negativity is in brand terms, a curious choice, however much it is being demanded by the masses.
You have to wonder where it ends… our Mobile devices already carry a swathe of iconography set up to enable us to express emotions in modern-day hieroglyphics — the emoticons / emoji and smileys of SMS messages the world over are no spring chicken when it comes to helping people not only express more complex feelings — but cross international boundaries. You only have to tinker with China’s social connector of choice, Weibo — to see this ramped up to another level.
What will they look like?
Well, if looking at Facebook woefully under ambitious recent rebrand — or should we say tweak — shows us anything it will be that the buttons will appear exactly as you would imagine. No innovation or progress here — there will be a thumbs up for like — and a thumbs down for dislike. Which is a shame.
For such a pioneer of digital connectivity you’d hope that Facebook could step change and offer a more entertaining choice, one that changed with the seasons, talk up to its audience — was data powered rather than simply a data capture. Icons that could be based on your location, the time of day or your past activity or preferences. Icons that could, depending on how long you clicked them range from light approval to complete undying love — and all the way back down to deep-seated hatred. But I seriously doubt it.
This is the mass-market pleasing approach to branding — a vanilla to the new guards tutti-frutti.
There’s a sense that while we are all willingly playing our part in this social amphitheatre, the Caeser-like hand of Facebook’s very own police verso will simply stomp from neutrality to love to hate at a click of a button…Only in this gladiatorial arena the emotions can’t be seen to be as that strong for fear of upsetting the sponsors, so we’ll be served up warm likes, and cool dislikes with a flick of the wrist.