Thumbstruck

The Semiotics of Liking via the “Phaticon”

Abstract

This article attempts to ground the ubiquitous icon of the “thumb” present on several social network services (SNSs) and online comment fora in both semiotic and semantic registers. The digital convention of making use of the thumb is first clarified in terms of its status as either icon, index, or symbol, and then what role it plays in human-computer interaction, the gamification of SNSs, digital gesturality, and the inherent mechanisms of arithmomania that guide approbation in the command and control environments of computer-mediated communication (CMC) that rely on prompting to guide online behavior. Finally, we ask if the thumb functions as part of the currency in online social capital accumulation and social transactionalism.