Generate your own fake social media reaction button because “likes” are boring

Facebook is making a button that will soon allow you to effortlessly display empathy on their platform, an emotion poorly captured by the simplistic “like.” To set the record straight: The button under development is being called a “dislike” button, but it’s more about showing you care than it is a sign of disapproval. Facebook hopes it will help you send a respectful response about bad news — that is, without the trouble of you working very hard to express it.

Many including Conan O’Brien have called for Facebook to offer more than two reaction buttons; he yelled “That’s not enough!” during a recent show before suggesting Facebook get a few more emotionally complex buttons.

Why stop at creating one Facebook button? Why don’t more social networks give us hundreds or thousands of options? Maybe the internet would be more emotionally healthy, and less filled with outrage or sugary clickbait, if social networks gave us better ways to express our feelings.

Think about it: The world already loves emoji and we use buttons a lot like them. Second, icons are no trend in human communication; it’s part of our linguistic legacy to express the human experience in every way we imagine.

An association between emoji and superficiality has hurt the credibility of emotionally-driven icons. Many, like the New York Times, have gone so far as to declare that “emoji have won the battle of words.” In case you’re wondering which side of this battle you’re on, the Times offers a quiz to determine your emoji knowledge called “Are You Fluent in Emoji?”

Build a better social button for yourself using this random generator. It will give you a meme-friendly button idea for Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Vine, Instagram, Line (a messaging app), Slack, and SoundCloud.