Facebook Reactions

So in case you missed it, yesterday Facebook exploded in celebratory glee over the introduction of its new emoticons, otherwise known as “Reactions,” according to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. No longer do we need to feel limited by the lowly “Like” button; we now have a heart Love button, a haha Laughter button, a yay Happy button {by the way, the Yay button is only available in Spain and Ireland right now…because apparently the Spanish and Irish are a lot Yayier than the rest of us}, a surprised Wow button, a frowny Sad button and a beady-eyed Angry button.

Ever the late adopter, I posted my own reaction to the Reactions on my Facebook page:

“Am I the only one who doesn’t love the new Facebook emoticons? I have 58 toothpastes to choose from, 148 kinds of deodorant, 9,000 kinds of cereal, 14,000 television stations, and now I have 6 Facebook faces, too. It’s too much! My brain is melting! Choice overload! How about we just go back to “Like” or move on? My head is going to pop off the first time someone gives me the angry face on a status update (go ahead, try it – who is going to be the first?!) ‪#‎curmudgeonly‬ (where’s the face for that, eh?)”

Plus, there’s the fact that I know myself. I already take note of the “Likes” on my posts (oh come on, get over it, you know you do, too). I can see how this is all going to go down…

“Huh. Only four Loves. Why only four Loves? Why 47 Likes but only four Loves? Why am I worthy of Like but not Love?! For the love, where is the LOVE?!”

Or… “Hey, she gave me the Angry Beady Eyes. What did I ever do to her? What did I do to deserve the Angry Beady Eyes? Yeah? Yeah? Fine. Angry Beady Eye right back at you, babe.”

I mean seriously, I’m already a navel gazer. These six new emoticons are only going to plunge me into a whole new level of navel-gazing, and it ain’t gonna be pretty.

I was mostly joking last night when I posted that status update about the new emoticons, until later, that is, when suddenly I wasn’t.

You see, I got to thinking about when I was in college. I wrote in long-hand (what, pray tell, is long hand?) to my nana and to my nana’s sister, my great aunt Mary, at least once a month – on my very own monogrammed stationery, no less. And I received letters from them in return. I still remember crouching down to open the tiny metal door of my dorm post office box and spotting the telltale dusty pink envelope, knowing my grandmother’s notepaper, with a rosebud at the top, just above the delicate script, From the Desk of Elizabeth DeRusha, was folded inside. I didn’t keep any of those letters (I got the Anti-Sentimental Gene from my dad), but I still remember how much I cherished receiving them at the time.

Now, I may sound like I am 1,009 years old for saying this, but for heaven’s sake, what have we come to with these Facebook emoticons?  Your coworker posts a sentimental note on Facebook about the death of her grandfather, and you click Frowny Sad Face and move on. Your sister posts a selfie of her new haircut, you click the heart. Finito. Your BFF posts about her terrible, awful, no good, very bad day, and you click Beady Angry Eyes to signify “Grrrrr, those are the worst.” Or do you click Frowny Sad Face to demonstrate empathy? Or do you click both for good measure?

Click. Done. Scroll on. Click. Done. Scroll on.

Facebook’s new “Reactions” simply give us another excuse and another way to skate through life on vapid autopilot. They let us off the hook by allowing us to pretend we are expressing heartfelt emotion – joy, sorrow, empathy, compassion, anger– when in fact, all we’re really doing is taking the easy way out. We’re not connecting, were clicking. And clicking. And clicking. And clicking.

Here’s what Mark Zuckerberg had to say about the Reactions launch on his own Facebook timeline yesterday (by the way, did you know that Mark Zuckerberg has 52,254,708 followers? For reals. It’s practically a ticker tape!) :

“Not every moment you want to share is happy. Sometimes you want to share something sad or frustrating. Our community has been asking for a dislike button for years, but not because people want to tell friends they don’t like their posts [ahem, clearly Mark hasn’t visited the Christian Facebook community lately]. People wanted to express empathy and make it comfortable to share a wider range of emotion. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the right way to do this with our team. One of my goals was to make it as simple as pressing and holding the Like button. The result is Reactions, which allow you to express love, laughter, surprise, sadness or anger.”