Facebook's 'Star Trek' reactions show it doesn't know jack about Spock
Vulcans do not say 'wow,' Captain.
Today is Star Trek's 50th anniversary, marking half a century since the show first aired on September 8th 1966. Here at Engadget, we're celebrating with an ancient Trekkie tradition: Nitpicking. Today, Facebook announced that it's temporarily replacing its "Like" buttons with a set of Trek-inspired reactions -- a laughing Captain Kirk, a sad, crying Geordi Laforge and an adorably angry Klingon. They're all perfect ...except for Spock. Facebook chose Star Trek's most emotionless character to represent its most emotive reaction: "Wow."
To be fair, it's hard to imagine a Facebook reaction that appropriately fits our favorite Vulcan. Mr. Spock's trademark placidity would have been equally ill-suited to anger, joy or sadness -- and it's pretty hard to celebrate Star Trek without Spock. With that requisite nerdery out of the way, however, there's lots to love about Facebook's Star Trek tribute. In addition to the new reaction buttons, Facebook users will be able to set a temporary profile image with a number of Trek-themed frames.
Even that's not the best part of the company's tribute, however -- that distinction goes to gorgeous papercraft Enterprise the social network constructed to use in the profile frame invitation. Facebook's Lindsey Shepard documented the process on Medium, explaining that an internal design team built the iconic starship by hand. It looks great. Now if only there was an characteristically appropriate Spock emoji we could use to express how impressive it is. Maybe something with a cautiously raised eyebrow? No? Oh well.
