Likes, those addicting little shitlets

Warning!
This is my opinion and the conclusion that I came up to.
Don't get your dopamine injectors from Borderlands in a twist!

Damn me! Back at it again to get likes... Shtasty man, Damn! Me!
. . .

I know atleast one of you out there is like "You idiot! Likes don't matter!!!!" You're absolutely right. They're not important... But they are. DUN DUN DUUN But seriously though, hear me out on that one. Likes are a way for you to show appreciation for a certain thing posted on the forums. And unless you block the alerts for "likes", an alert similar to this will show up:

And well, this made me question... Are likes really that pointless? I mean if they're as pointless as KateVampire said they are:

Then why bother creating them in the first place? Why do they exist if they're so pointless. Well, here's the conclusion I came up to. Likes are fucking addicting. Wooooo. But seriously, if we believe MatPat about the dopamine thing video he made about addiction, this would make a lot of sense. When you receive a like and you're notified, you feel a little bit of pleasure and dopamine does his job. Since you aren't the one who decides when you get the likes, you're waiting for an another one. When you received another one, dopamine does its job again and so on and you become addicted. Could it be the reason for likes to exist in the first place? To keep you using the website? Maybe, I don't know.

But what's my problem with them besides their way of addicting you to make you use the website more? Well... This forum in particular is targeted towards young teenagers (12+). And what does the website do? Brings in a little bit of flame of jealousy... and light it with likes. How exactly? This shitty table:



From my personal experience, when I just joined the forums, I felt like having a lot of likes was something cool. Little did the little asshole me from the past know... The likes achieved exactly what they wanted from me. To keep using the website, since I was jealous of people who had more likes than I did, I went for my quest for likes slowly getting more and more addicted. Now I don't care about likes that much anymore, and I would probably not care at all if not this post by TheRealSmg;



Addiction. I highly suspect it's because of those cancerous buttons that you press to say that you approve someone's post. I mean, without even really thinking about it, I'm making this post with an intent of obtaining those likes knowing how pointless they are. Just like a dear old Smg said, "the addiction is slowly making me crazy." But who knows, maybe I'm talking a load of shit right now but that's the conclusion that I came up to and that's why I think likes are the absolute worst.




So those are my thoughts on "likes," what do you think? Do you think I'm right that the likes are a drug to keep you using the website or that I just told a load of shit and I'm just a like hungry asshole? Either way, tell me down below. You'll get a free like from me if you do ;) Thanks for reading!

 

It's opinions like these on why we can't have nice things.

 

Likes show what people (surprise) like. More liked people and topics have positive like ratios (similar to a K/D) like 1.2 or 3 and things. However, with all the like spam, it becomes useless and pointless.

 

Lowkey, there just likes. Like right now I have a little over 100 likes. But I get what you mean about satisfaction. I think it has to do with the "popularity scale". I also think that people like posts because it is reiterating what that person said without having to type anything. I post because I like to give input or to be funny and that's about it.

 

Dude, I agree that getting likes can be addicting. They may not matter, but don't you always get that nice feeling when you receive one? It shows that people actually like your content. It's also why I relate this forum to a social media service, because it has likes.

Spoiler: woah

I don't get why people be hatin, dude. It's an OPINION. We're supposed to be encouraged to, well, "be ourselves"?Don't think so. Ignore the haters, and keep going. I honestly see nothing wrong with these span of threads, other than the fact that people tend to not agree. Stuff like this reminds me that the peeps these days can't take one little opinion, on one minecraft forum. Fascinating, ain't it? ;)

 

Well, it's their opinion on my opinion... So you can't really tell them to stop =P
But thanks for support anyways

 

"Hi" - 0 likes
Jerry: "hi" - 15+ likes

Insane!!!

 

It's messages like that that make the internet cancerous as fuck because we can't express our opinion without getting judged.

 

It's language like this that makes arguments on Facebook ugly and not worth our time.

Edit: I like likes and it's too bad if you're trying to tell me I shouldn't because, you know, I can do what I want.

 

Never said you shouldn't. =|

 

I use likes to like a post or thread that I think is funny, or that I agree with. I like posts/threads that I support or enjoyed viewing.
If likes don't matter to people that much then they shouldn't pay attention to them. They are there for the people who enjoy them.
Yes, when someone likes your post it feels like you've received recognition and that maybe someone agrees/ likes your views. There's nothing wrong with that. Sure like-spam can get annoying very oftenly because even I get jealous sometimes, but likes are made such a big deal out of, not like it's a bad thing, but people turn it into something bad when it becomes competition. It should never be a competition.
I don't think the like system should be removed or even touched. I think it's fine the way it is now.

 

blame facebook!!

 

Idk what's gotten into you, but you're better than this.
If you had thought your actions through, you would've seen that your post is worse than hers. Point lost.

 

TBH, I don't think you can remove likes 100% because the forum software probably intergrated likes.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

EDIT: Yep, there's no removing likes. I went to the XenForo forums (a.k.a the forums of the server software this server uses) and they had likes as well.

 

Lol, I never said you should remove them, I simply stated why I disliked them.

 

Just sayin'

 

Okay, lol. I never said that you said to remove them either so..
Just a statement.