Like button

Facebook’s ‘Like’ button is both verbal and visual Unspeak, with its thumbs-up signalling a one-note enthusiasm. The button could have been labelled ‘Interesting’ or ‘Important’; instead, ‘Like’ shrinks our possible judgments to a banal emotional positivity, which would often be horribly misplaced. When someone you know announces bad news on Facebook, do you really want to be ‘the first of your friends to Like this’?

Related Episode

The Unspeak Dictionary exposes the meaning and historical context behind familiar Unspeak terms while crowdsourcing new terms into a collective database.

Select a term on the left to show its definition, reference links, and alternative definitions

Suggest a new Unspeak term, add an alternate definition or a new reference link

Vote on the best alternative definitions.

Discover related terms in the episode.

Explore various data visualizations that reflect the real-world usage of the selected term

Watch related episode