You Will Never Have to ‘Like’ Anything On Facebook Again

You are no longer expected to Like anything on Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg’s pride and joy now allows users to reveal their anger, love, or shock without liking or commenting on a post. So when your News Feed includes a former high school peer supporting Donald Trump (or Hillary Clinton or Ted Cruz or whoever you don’t like), you can simply click “Haha.” Or choose from the five other Reactions: Like, Love, Wow, Sad or Angry.

The new feature opens a whole new realm of judgment. It encourages people to actually care about their reaction to a post, to engage in it. Brands and organizations will now use reactions to adjust their social media strategy accordingly. In a press release, product manager Sammi Krug said, “We see this as an opportunity for businesses and publishers to better understand how people are responding to their content on Facebook.”

Reactions is a sweet addition to the tattoo community. One does not simply Like a spine tattoo. One is Wowed by a spine tattoo, one LOVES the spine tattoo. You can finally show artists and collectors that their work is worthy of more than a mediocre Like. Of course if you don’t like it, you can express that too.

Poor Reactions for tattoos will surface, that’s inevitable. To tattooers and wearers on the receiving end: Do you see the glass half empty or half full? We advise you take the votes constructively. This doesn’t necessarily mean you’re bad at the craft, perhaps it’s the overall design that turned people off. The world’s top tattooers still seek to improve their skills; use Reactions to better your work. And do you—that’s what got you to tattooing in the first place.

Keep in mind that just as Facebook used your Liked content to filter what you do and do not see, the platform will now use Reactions to do the same. Krug said, “We hope to learn how the different Reactions should be weighted differently by News Feed to do a better job of showing everyone the stories they most want to see.” Thus, you may see less of what you judge to be sad and more of what you find funny—be careful, too much of one thing is never good. Every News Feed needs an angering post here and there.