Happy 50th Anniversary Star Trek! Facebook celebrates with new like buttons
If you are a Star Trek fan, you will definitely love this bit of news! The popular cult sci-fi series which many of us grew up watching is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2016. To honour the creation of Star Trek: The Original Series. To mark the occasion and celebrate the franchise’s milestone, the world’s most popular social media site, Facebook has created custom ‘Like’ buttons for users and a temporary profile picture frame.
The ground-breaking show, which was launched on September 8, 1966 on NBC, was cancelled three years into its mission. “Star Trek'” showed a utopian future for the universe in which a cast of international fictional characters, including Americans working side-by-side with Russian and Japanese characters in the middle of the Cold War, featured exploration rather than fighting, as well as peace between not only the people of earth and aliens, like the Vulcan character Spock, but also among races on Earth itself.
In a statement by Lindsey Shepard, the social network’s marketing lead for Messenger, explained the creation of the Star Trek Reactions:
“In addition to the greeting and profile frames, we decided to add another element to the celebration with custom Star Trek Reactions. In order to make this understood by all Star Trek fans, we chose the most iconic and recognizable characters and symbols from the original Star Trek series, as well as the Next Generation. We also wanted to honor the original design and spirit of Reactions, so we needed visual cues that were easy to identify at a glance, like Geordi’s visor. This led us to our final cast: Kirk, Spock, Geordi and a Klingon.
“In our custom set of Reactions, “like” stays true to form but with a little added sparkle, and “love” is represented by the Vulcan salute. We also think it makes sense that Kirk, as the first captain, is first up after “like” and “love,” and that a Klingon should be the “angry” Reaction, given that they are easily agitated.
“These Reactions will be available to some Star Trek fans in the U.S. and Canada for a limited time, and will appear when you hover over the like button on a post.
“This project has truly been a labor of love. We hope that people find as much joy in using these different celebratory elements as we have in creating them. We may test experiences like this in the future, and will focus on community and moment-driven events like this one.
“Live long and prosper.”
This is not the first time that the social media giant has played with the buttons. Facebook had tested out a temporary reaction earlier this year for Mother’s Day by adding in a flower.
