Tuesday 10 December 2013

Me No Leica

"Me no Leica" was the wonderful three word review that one critic brilliantly came up with for the rather pretentious film "I, A Camera".

Anyway, I would really Leica to alert you to this stunning piece of news that the BBC quietly smuggled out under the cover of wall-to-wall Mandela. Yes, I hope you're sitting down. Facebook has devised a "sympathise" button as an alternative to the "like" button for use in certain situations. Be still my beating heart. How far we have moved on from the days when people used to "poke" each other.


We've all done it, haven't we? Someone posts a picture of their dog and without reading the story about the poor pooch being run over by a bus we absent mindedly click "like" and look like a heartless unfeeling dickhead. A "sympathise" button would prevent this and let you become a caring, sharing person again.

Well it turns out that Dan Muriello, a Facebook Software Engineer from the "Hackathon", is being a bit of a tease when he says "A lot of people were very excited. But we made a decision that it was not exactly the right time to launch that product. Yet," he said.

Now before I jump off at a tangent of ranting about programmers being described as "Engineers" and a jpeg being described as a "product" in a complete slap in the face to Isambard Kingdom Brunel, I'd just like to offer the teenage moguls at Facebook another suggestion alongside their "sympathise" button:

It's the "I'm THIS interested in your Selfie/tedious status update/gerbil pictures/re-post of pearls of philosophical nuggets/cry for attention".

No don't thank me.


10 comments:

Nota Bene said...

A thumbs up from me on this one

Unknown said...

A "sympathise" option would be good. A FB friend of mine woke up on Sunday morning and her husband had died in the night lying next to her! Aged 45!

Curry Queen said...

My vote goes to a "dislike" button. Think how useful that would be.....

broken biro said...

Fortunately complete ambivalence requires no icon. *happy sigh*

Unknown said...

I've never pressed a 'like' button on Facebook. If it's not worth making a comment, then we can't have 'liked' it much.
But I do like Curry Queen's idea of a 'dislike' button. It seems only fair.

Rog said...

Nota: I do have other rejected ideas...

John: OMG.

CQ: I don't think the Californian silicon hippies would support such British negativity.

BB: I'm sure they'll be extremely concerned :-)

Mike: Good point. It's the equivalent of a wink to a passing acquaintance.

Z said...

Yes, let's go with the OMG button.

Pat said...

'Sometimes its better to say nothing at all.'
May Barnes (My mum)

Sir Bruin said...

How about an "Agog with indifference" button?

mig bardsley said...

The only buttons I use come attached with thread. And I can't make them say anything.