To celebrate 50 years of the Star Trek franchise Facebook has changed the ‘Like’ buttons on its social networking platform … but you have to like the Star Trek main page (and have luck on your side) in order to access the limited-edition emoji.
According to Lindsey Shephard, Facebook Messenger’s head of marketing, the company wanted to choose symbols that could be easily understood immediately: “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.”
The thumbs-up for “Like” adds some intergalactic sparkle. “Love” has been turned into a Vulcan split-finger greeting, the “Haha” face has a Captain Kirk hairdo (sadly there is not enough detail to imply a toupee), “Wow” gets the Spock treatment, “Sad” looks like Geordi La Forge from The Next Generation and “Angry” has the ridged brow of a Klingon. Check out the emoji below!
You may also have noticed a personalized greeting at the top of your News Feed if you’ve liked or interacted with Star Trek or related sci-fi content on the social networking platform, and there’s also a special custom profile frame you can apply to your primary display pic.
How to get Star Trek emoji on Facebook
Unfortunately, getting the Star Trek emoji might not be as simple as going to the franchise’s Facebook page and liking it. These emoji seem to have been doled out somewhat more randomly. Highly illogical.
According to TechCrunch, the Star Trek emoji is only available to a limited number of established Star Trek fans in the U.S. and Canada, “and only if you managed to get into that bucket of FB-identified Star Trek fans.” No emoji I? Curse your devil algorithms!
Were you able to get the emoji after hearing about them, or were they part of your page when you logged in? If you managed to get them, let us know what you did in the comments!
