Bizzare Facts

The digital gesture that fuels the majority of social media interaction—the **'Like'** button—came perilously close to being something entirely different. When Facebook was developing the feature, the engineering team internally debated several alternatives, with the strongest contender being the **'Awesome'** button. Other options included 'Cool' and the even more casual 'Yeah.'

Ultimately, the team settled on 'Like' because it was determined to be more universally applicable and emotionally neutral. A button that exclusively allowed users to express things as 'Awesome' would have felt inappropriate for posts discussing serious or negative events (like a relative’s illness or a tragedy). 'Like,' however, could be interpreted as 'I acknowledge this' or 'I support this message,' making it safe for nearly any context.

This choice proved critical to the button's global adoption. It was designed to encourage engagement without demanding an overly specific or high-stakes emotional reaction, making it the perfect piece of friction-free feedback. The decision ensured the button would become the simplest and most successful measure of online popularity in the world, all because the designers opted for polite neutrality over enthusiastic praise.