In the early fourteenth century, peasants in southern Germany would collectively hunt for smooth pebbles which they would then paint (using a mixture of boiled beetroots and milk) to leave outside each other’s doors. The house with the most coloured pebbles outside it was the house most favoured by those in the community, and its residents could hold their heads slightly higher at Sunday morning mass each week.
This, of course, is completely untrue. The fact there is no real historical precedent for social media “Likes” illustrates how jarring it is that we have introduced a system whereby we can visibly quantify and publicly display our social worth on an interaction-by-interaction basis. Throughout history, humans have come up with an abundance of ways to demonstrate their social standing, but none have been as pervasive, as recurrent, and as efficient as the Like button.
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