I wonder if this concept of “Like” fails us when it comes to certain unlikable content.
Say I wrote a compelling article on Mexican drug cartels and the way they murder and dismember their enemies — the way they kill local farmers and children found spying or who end up trapped — wrong place, wrong time. I’d portray the brutal executions and hacking of limbs and heads and the callous dumping of the parts in shallow graves.
The whole thing would be gut-wrenchingly accurate and provocative.
You read it and your mouse cursor would hover over the Like button… but “Like” this? How can anyone Like this? It’s deplorable, despicable, disgusting. Like it? Hell no!
Most posts are of a sort that can truly be liked. But even this post here is not really a Likable entity. There’s nothing in it to Like per se. Acknowledge? Appreciate? Identify with? Yeah, okay. But Like? Umm, no, not really.
I view the word “like” to be one that means exactly what one would expect it to mean. “Yeah, I like beer and black licorice and stinky brie cheese.” That, to me, is the appropriate use of the word. “Liking” a post about murderous, barbaric drug cartels? No, I’m sorry, something just doesn’t jive with me there.
Have you ever run across great content where the actual topics represented concepts and ideas that were positively “Unlikable”? Yet the content was portrayed in such a way that was professional, cogent and evocative? But you just couldn’t bring yourself to click that Like button?
Anonymole - apocryphal agitators 
Usually if I can read the whole post I will click ‘like’ considering that I liked it enough to read the whole thing. There are exceptions though. There is a racial hate blog that is well written and often I have to read it with a dictionary because of all the fancy words that I read to try to understand a way of thinking different than mine. The hatred and stupidity is so profound and potent that I will usually read the whole thing but cannot bring myself to smash the ‘like’ button.
If you want a taste I’ll email the link. It’s awful!
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Like, at times, feels like an endorsement, not just of the author, but of the content. The concept falls down then. Especially for hate oriented posts. Sure, the reasoning was intelligently presented — but do I really want to endorse this (in even the slightest mode possible)?
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