Pokes Are Making a Comeback on Facebook

Highlights

• Pokes Revival: Facebook is attempting to revive Pokes, a feature it has tried to bring back multiple times in recent years.
• New Features: The latest update introduces simplified poke functionality along with a gamification element.
• User Engagement: Facebook aims to encourage user interaction through a redesigned Poke button on profiles.
• Target Audience: Meta hopes younger users will engage with Pokes, similar to features in Snapchat.

Look, I don’t know why, but apparently, Zuck and Co. have decided that it’s time to try and make Pokes a thing once again, with the platform announcing a new revamp of option, which it already attempted to revive in 2017, then again last year, to limited interest.

But clearly, Facebook’s not willing to give up on the option, even if everybody else is.

As you can see in these example screens, Facebook’s latest attempt to resurrect Pokes adds simplified poke functionality, and a new gamification element.

As explained by Facebook:

“See who poked you and find other friends to poke at www.facebook.com/pokes. You’ll be able to see your pokes count with friends grow each time you poke each other, while you can also dismiss pokes from the list.”

And as you can see in the first image above, Facebook’s also brought the Poke button back to user profiles, so you can easily poke somebody by heading to their profile page.

Why would you want to do that? I don’t know, but Zuck and Co. clearly think that it has value, and can add to your social media experience in some way.

Or they just want it to happen.

Back in March, Meta attempted to revive Facebook, by announcing that it would be adding “several OG Facebook experiences” back into the app. That began with its revamped Friends tab, and now, that’s also extended to this latest attempt to drag Pokes back into some form of relevance.

Though it seems unlikely as ever to gain any real traction, particularly given that fewer people are now using Facebook, and even fewer are using it to connect with friends, with most now switching to messaging platforms for such purpose.

But maybe it’s worth Meta trying out again, and maybe there is some committed group of Poke enthusiasts who’ll herald a new age of pointless, annoying interaction in the app.

And if Facebook can get young people to use the option, that could spark a Snapchat-like rush on Pokes, with the new poke counts acting like its own version of Snap streaks.

I assume that’s the hope here, but it just feels like a tone deaf, corporate attempt to “make fetch happen,” which once again reflects Meta’s broader lack of trend nous and user interest.

Which seems ridiculous to say about a company that owns the most used social and messaging apps in the world. But the thing with Meta’s apps is that younger audiences are rarely as interested, with older demographics filling out the numbers, and boosting their usage.

Which is better for business, no doubt, but Facebook and Instagram never have the cool features first, they simply clone them from Snapchat and TikTok, in order to latch onto the latest trends.

You can also see this in Meta’s AI tools, with Facebook constantly prompting you to “create a picture of yourself as an astronaut” or some other dopey prompt.

Why? Why would anyone want to do that? Why would anyone want to create a fake, AI image of themselves doing something they never did, other than to scam people by sharing such within Meta’s apps?

The same goes for Meta’s celebrity-inspired AI bots, which it’s now tried to make a thing several times. Why would anybody care if the AI bot that they’re engaging with sounds like Snoop Dogg or Jon Cena? It’s a bot, it’s not these actual celebrities, so why is this a thing that Meta keeps pushing, as if this is the Holy Grail in building connection with younger audiences?

Facebook has clearly been a massive success, and its purchase of Instagram was a stroke of genius in retrospect. But Zuck and Co. don’t know what cool is, and that’s reflected in all of their product releases, interviews, etc.

Meta is the ultimate culture vulture, relying on the credibility and nous of other platforms and collaborators to win. Even its Meta Ray Ban glasses are only cool because of Ray Ban’s input, not because of Meta’s own input.

And clearly, that hasn’t been an impediment to Meta’s broader success as a business. But as a cultural influence, with unique features and engagement tools, Facebook ain’t it.

But now it’s easier to poke people again, so people who didn’t know what Facebook was back in 2006 can try it out for themselves, and get sick of it like we all did.