Mere weeks after Facebook unveiled their new detailed emoji-reaction options, Mark Zuckerberg, founder of the company, realized that the move was not a big enough step in the evolution of social media reaction-making.
“As soon as I saw the ‘like’ button expand into various emotive icons, I realized something: when people respond to their Facebook friends’ content they want to convey their feelings as specifically as possible. Users now have the option to say that they ‘love’ or are ‘angry’ about something their friends or family members have posted, but is it really far enough? I initially toyed with the idea of instituting a webcam-related reaction system, where the user’s webcam is activated whenever he or she is on Facebook. When the user wants to react to a post, all he or she would have to do is click a button, and the user’s account will automatically post a five-second video clip of their reaction in the comment section of the post. However, in the early stages of developing the webcam reactions I received a cease and desist letter from the National Security Agency telling me to, ‘get an original idea, you washed up young hack.’ ”
After making this statement, the young prodigy unveiled a new system of social reaction, called “Five Point.”
“With Five Point, Facebook users finally get what they’ve always wanted: to tell their friends and family, in detail, exactly what they think about their Facebook posts.”
Five Point replaces the button formerly known as the “like” button with a small web portal, which opens up to a large textbox wherein users are required to submit a well-structured five paragraph essay in reaction to the post they want to convey their emotions about. If a Five Point reaction is made without a clearly defined thesis at the beginning of the opening paragraph, three explanation paragraphs, and a closing paragraph to restate the opening paragraph, then the reaction is removed instantly. To ensure that the rules of Five Point are being followed, dozens of high school teachers have volunteered to read reactions and grade them based on Mark Zuckerberg’s criteria.
“It is very different than the comment section. We have limited comment size to 140 characters, which isn’t enough to say anything worth reading, so that actually stimulating responses must be made with Five Point.”
Zuckerberg continued to defend his project despite the visibly dropping market price of Facebook stock.
“Come on, guys, social media is everything! You’re resisting the future if you ignore this! ‘Likes’ are so arbitrary, when you write a full, structured essay the person you’re responding to knows that you really care about their post. Anybody?”
The young billionaire was met with silence as stockholders and interested spectators silently filed out of the news conference, headed home, logged on to Facebook, and wrote sarcastic Five Point reactions to people’s posts about Five Point. Shortly thereafter, the majority of their browser histories included Google searches on “how to delete my Facebook account.”
Immediately after the conference Facebook saw a dramatic decrease in web traffic. Within a week of Five Point being released ads were no longer willing to display themselves on the Facebook sidebar, stockholders fled en masse to their local coffee shops to research “the next big thing,” and Mark Zuckerberg sought out companionship from the one person who could relate to his situation: Tom from Myspace.
–Jacob Wright, Staff Member