Active Liking

The internet has revolutionized our language. Text used to be a noun, and you used to chat with someone rather than chatting them. My mom is sometimes perplexed at all the code names my siblings use. My nine-year-old brother calls the pet store the quilt store to try to trick her into driving him to look at bearded dragons and parakeets. My college-aged sister went through a phase where all of her roommates' crushes had code names.

Sister: Jacob called Annelle.
Mom: Wait, I thought Annelle liked Edward.
Sister: Well she does. We just call Edward Jacob so no one will know who we are talking about.

And now all of the sudden Facebook has distorted "liking" from some sort of passive feeling verb to an action verb.

Missy: Am I allowed to like my own quote?
Thought in my head: Of course you can like your own quote, but if you "like" your own quote then you may look narcissistic. Of course, I have few problems with narcissism as long as one acknowledges he or she is being narcissistic.

See it used to be that you could like something without the whole world knowing. But now you don't really like something until you click that "Like" button on Facebook and tell the whole world about it. To like something is no longer to have a subjective feeling in favor of something, but rather to click a button on the internet.

Not only does the internet have the capacity to significantly alter the meaning of our language, but it dehumanizes us by distorting the things that make us most human. Never before was it necessary to tell someone you liked something in order to validate that feeling. Telling someone was telling someone and liking was liking. But now meaning has been distorted to the point that liking something means telling someone about it. And not just someone, everyone on Facebook!

The author of this blog is seriously considering yet another Facebook sebatical, but currently favors remaining on Facebook in order to facilitate a higher number of social invitations. It's called FOMO (Fear of Missing Out).