The Original "Thumbs" Guys

I had cause again recently to wonder at the way we as a culture tend to devalue things once they reach a certain level of popularity. Take the concept of “Likes”. Pretty sure Facebook coined the term, but it was Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert who for me revolutionized the old “Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down” idea for scoring an entertainment-related widget. In their case it was movies. Today it’s pages and websites. And books. And bread. And auto parts.

I’m betting if you look hard enough, there has just got to be a Facebook page for certain hygiene products that here, in this family-oriented blog, shall remain nameless.

Yes, the entire marketplace has been Facebooked. Like this. Like that. And you know what? I’m okay with it. I “liked” it when Siskel and Ebert were arguing over thumbs up and down—fact is I “like” it now. It can be a quick, one-glance way to both rate and evaluate a product or a page.

But a strange phenomenon has occurred here in this age of liking things with the click of a button. It’s easy. Ergo people are now wanting you to take Nike’s lead and Just DO IT.

Like me. Like my page. Like my product.

In fact, many Facebook pages actually make “Liking” their page (and therefore their widget) a prerequisite for access to their prime offerings (clips, chapters, groupons, etc.). Stop and think about that:

You need to Like my movie’s page before you can watch a trailer to see if you actually like my movie!

Can you imagine a movie producer asking Gene or Roger, back in the day, to give her movie a “Thumbs Up” before they’d actually seen it (and actually felt that way)?

I mentioned that I recently had cause to think about this phenomenon again. It was more difficult this time, because usually when asked to Like someone’s page, I do it. After all, that’s the culture we live in. We’re all constantly asked to Like a page. What’s the big deal, right? (In some ways, it almost puts MORE pressure on us to have more Likes tallied up—imagine the poor schmuck who can only muster 5 Likes in a world where we dole them out like hard candy along a parade route!)

What made it harder for me recently is that an author who I already love, with a book I just discovered I also loved, needed more Likes for her web page. Again, I got it. Yep, we all need to get our numbers up. But my dilemma was this: I really do LIKE this person and their page…how do I sound more genuine than when I am “just asking for a Like”?

That’s when it really hit me, how much we love to devalue something in this fast-paced culture we now live in. The current generation or two has now been raised in this environment where everything is measured by an ever-changing number. How much RAM do you have? 1 Gig, 10 Gig, 100 Gig? I remember not all that long ago I thought a Terabyte of data for a program at my company was HUGE—I mean, they were bragging about it. Now I have a 2-Terabyte external drive connected to my home desktop computer (and that’s not even large by today’s standards).

So what I decided with my friend is to just be honest. I really like her book. I really like her page. She really is a great person. So that’s all I did:

I said so.

Hopefully the Likes she gets will also be genuine, because she really deserves them. I just wish the value of Likes as a whole had not been so diluted. Truth is, I don’t think it matters.

Uh, YUM.

In summary, I do totally understand that many of us have been forced into a situation where the “Like” is what it is, and we all better think up newer and more ingenious ways to entice warm bodies into giving our pages, books, articles, products, and opinions favorable one-click press.

In coming up with a catchy (if not innovative) way to give viewers a quick and dirty look-see as to the worthiness of a particular movie, all those years ago, I feel like  Siskel and Ebert revolutionized the “Thumbs Up” (apologies to Commodus Caesar, though I believe his use of the gesture was largely dramatized in ‘Gladiator’) .

Yet if we can agree that the movie critics at the very least revitalized (if not revolutionized) the “Thumbs Up”, I’m afraid all that Facebook may have accomplished with their infamous button is to rejuvenate the self-licking ice cream cone.

P.S. If you care to visit my friend’s page, and offer her a Like at your own discretion, I know she (and I) would appreciate it! You can do so here.

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The blank page is dead…long live the blank page.

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Author known to use spontaneous satire, sarcasm, and unannounced injections of pith or witticisms which may not be suitable for humorless or otherwise jest-challenged individuals. (Witticisms not guaranteed to be witty, funny, comical, hilarious, clever, scintillating, whimsical, wise, endearing, keen, savvy, sagacious, penetrating, fanciful, or otherwise enjoyable. The Surgeon General has determined through laboratory testing that sarcasm can be dangerous, even in small amounts, and should not be ingested by those who are serious, somber, pensive, weighty, funereal, unsmiling, poker-faced, sober, or pregnant.)