Hasta La Gadget!

Like a lot of chronic Facebook users you probably spend way too much time browsing your newsfeed and eventually you just give up, become bored, or just too busy to pay attention to what your friends are posting. It’s hard to like everything.

Image via blog.livedoor.jp

In Japan, where Facebook is relatively new in popularity (it exploded in 2012) users are more prone to like and comment on their friends’ status updates and photos out of a sense of obligation or pressure.
With that level of interaction, and the expectation to like just about everything, you might as well go all the way, which is what the new doudemo ii ne (Whatever Button) is is designed for.

We stumbled upon this new feature for Google Chrome at the Japan Media Arts Festival, which we also wrote about yesterday.

You can download this free app now at idpw.org and economise your Facebook time by simply liking everything on the page with the touch of a button.
The video on the main page explains how to use the Whatever Button and this video bellow (in Japanese) explains the process in more detail, and it’s a sly commentary on how many Japanese people use Facebook in real life.

Make sure all your friends know how much you care about what they had for dinner, how their sister’s baby is, or how their cat does the cutest things!

images via technmarketing.com and buuteeq.com

It’s a bit of nuance as well, but the “whatever” part is more on the negative, cynical side when translated properly. It’s more of a resigned “yeah, whatever, I’ll like it all…” feeling rather than “everything is great!”. You can also purchase your own Whatever Button T-shirts here if you’re into ironic t-shirts.