Remember the Facebook “poke” option? It didn’t really seem to serve any discernible purpose, other than allowing old high school acquaintances to wordlessly and creepily interact with you. Facebook sensibly removed this function from its front end several years ago. But it has still been lingering in the background, like a smelly, unwelcome zombie.
Nobody was really sure what Facebook pokes were all about, including the company itself. Here’s the hilariously vague explanation as it originally appeared on Facebook’s help page:
The poke feature can be used for a variety of things on Facebook. For instance, you can poke your friends to say hello.
Note that they only gave one example. This reminds me of the candy lips salesman on The Simpsons:
But anyway. It turns out that the Poke function never really left — instead, it has been buried off the front page within the additional options list (so buried, in fact, that we originally thought it had been killed off and resurrected — thanks to all the poke-loving readers who brought this error to our attention.)
If you want to use Facebook like it’s 2010 it’s still possible to do so. To poke a friend, head to their profile, click on the “more options” symbol and select Poke. Congratulations: you just sent an entirely pointless notification to someone who now hates you.
Comments
11 responses to “Reminder: You Can Still Facebook ‘Poke’ Your Friends”
Pff, it never left, Grandpa.
the poke never went away, ive been using it this whole time lol
It never went away…? I’ve been poking a friend back and forth for years, for no reason at all.
Seconded, it never went away.
Well either you guys are using a different service, or Facebook is doing some crazy A/B poke testing, because I haven’t seen it for years!
I stand corrected. I’ve not seen the “poke” in years and neither had anyone in my office. Maybe our Facebook friends are cooler than yours. Or maybe they just don’t like us.
*previous comment removed – apologies for being quite so “direct” in my incredulity I am trigger-happy, and apologise for this*
I have been poking back and forth with friends for YEARS. It does not seem to have been a function that was ever removed. I have experienced this. It is real. Hopefully this post will not be removed. One wonders though how reporting on something that has “reappeared” when it never actually went away is a valid point? Confused.
PS – I am looking at my FB frontend RIGHT NOW on my other monitor, and can see it. It isn’t buried. It never was in my experience. Definitely not “in the background”. VERY confused?
Odd. For us, it’s only accessible by diving into the “more options” drop down menu. You also have to go to the person’s profile page first.
Wow. It’s just on my side-panel above “Photos”. Are you using a phone perhaps?
Nope, desktop view on a 15-inch laptop.
http://imgur.com/ZaC4WI3 this is strange. It has not moved from this spot for as long as I can remember!