A Like is a form of engagement on social media. It’s a quick way of showing that you—literally—like the content posted by simply clicking a button. On Facebook, the Like button is a thumbs-up, while on Instagram and Twitter, a Like is indicated by a heart. Liking content also works like bookmarking, since you can go back later to view the content you have Liked. (https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-definitions/like/)

Likes are, apparently, very important in a persons life. We want to be liked. We do anything for Likes. We can even buy Likes. Likes are everywhere and big tech companies use likes to tailor content to your needs, this getting you more engaged/addicted to their platform with the aim to understand more who you are and using this information to generate more “ad revenue”. Ad revenue between quotes because it’s debatable if the main revenue for those platforms come from ad revenue or from selling target groups to companies or institutes who want to bend your personal opinion by bombarding you with content in favor of that companies ideologies. But that aside.

What surprises me is how far we are willing to go for Likes. I will give you some examples:

Take the Fail Army-type of sites. I mention Fail Army, but there are thousands of those sites. If i do something stupid, if i fall on my face, crash my car, slip and hurt myself and it happens to be recorded, that would not typically be something i would publish on social media. I mean, i would make a fool of myself, right? Wrong! That is THE thing you want to post on YouTube because you will get Likes/Liked. People apparently Like seeing other people making mistakes and getting hurt.

Next level: I just bought myself a nice sports car that can go 250km/h. So what do i do? I get on the motorway, record myself going 250km/h and post this on social media. Only to find the police on my doorstep the next day to come and collect my drivers license. Why? Are Likes that important that you are willing to rick your drivers license for it?

Another level up: I am in high school and some kid gets beaten up by a group of other kids. Clearly he/she doesn’t get a chance to defend him/herself and get severely hurt. Hospitalized probably. Traumatized surely. That’s cool. Let me record that and post it on instagram. For the Likes. Instead of helping out we record the violence for the Likes… Where are we going with this?

Sure, Likes help Big Tech make Big Bucks. Likes might help the insecure to get confirmation from the outside world that you have a cool life (although the contrary, the lack of Likes makes people feel depressed, is more often the case). But surely, do we really have to go to any length to get our Likes?