Poke Off already

“When we created the poke, we thought it would be cool to have a feature without any specific purpose. People interpret the poke in many different ways, and we encourage you to come up with your own meanings.” – Mark Zuckerberg

As far as I’m concerned, the “POKE” button is the appendix of Facebook.  It serves no useful purpose, it does nothing to improve the quality of life, and it only gets noticed when it causes trouble.

And the only reason I’m writing this blog post at all is because of my Times Union blog buddy Jeannine Trimboli, she of the Real [Fit] Life blog.  The girl gets a ton of POKE contacts on Facebook – many of which are from people she’s never met or never interacted with – and it’s gotten to the point where it can be overwhelming and kinda creepy.

Personally, I’ve never used the POKE button.  Someone once tried to POKE me.  I sent them a message back.  “Why don’t you just say hello?” I asked.  “I did,” was the response.  “I poked you.”

Um… right.

Let me say this about the POKE button.  Why would you use it?  What is the benefit?  You’re trying to get my attention by poking me?  The last time anybody tried to get my attention by poking me, I was in fourth grade and a classmate was poking me with his index finger, letting me know it was time for my ups in a game of classroom recess punchball.

Are you using the POKE button to try to meet members of the opposite sex online?  POKE POKE POKE hopefully they’ll take notice of me?  POKE POKE POKE they might find this appealing and will maybe POKE POKE back, and then maybe tonight there’ll be a lot of POKE POKE POKE behind closed doors?

Yeah…. no.  That’s not bringing sexyback.  That’s bringing pest-y-back.

Or maybe you’re doing the POKE as a way to say, “Hey everybody, look at me, I’m so great, POKE POKE POKE don’t you want to find out more about me?  If you’re tired of talking about me, let’s talk about you.  What do you think about me?  POKE POKE POKE?”

People who use the poke button as a means of grabbing personal attention will most likely get the “unfriended” treatment from me.  Listen, just because I increased my personal Facebook friend limit to 200 friends doesn’t mean I can’t “cull the herd” if necessary to make room for more people.

You want to tap me on the shoulder if we’re both in a personal setting, great.  You want to point at something that’s interesting, in an effort to get my attention, that’s great too.  And maybe I’m from the old school when it comes to things like this.  If you want to get my attention, just contact me.  E-mail.  Text.  Call if you want.  Or just say hi.

But leave the pokes for igniting embers in the fireplace.  Leave the pokes for swine enclosures.  And leave the pokes out of my business.

You’re an adult.  Didn’t anybody tell you that it ain’t polite to point and poke? 😉