In a surprising move, 21 years later, Meta is breathing new life into one of Facebook’s earliest, and arguably most puzzling, features: the poke. Once a quirky hallmark of early social networking, the poke is making a comeback, as Meta reintroduces it to user profiles within the Facebook app and adds new interactive elements to make it more engaging.
The company announced the update via a post on Instagram, revealing that pokes will now be easier to access directly from user profiles. Additionally, users can monitor their poke history and interactions with friends at facebook.com/pokes. The revamped experience includes a streak-like mechanic reminiscent of Snapchat, where different emojis appear based on the number of pokes exchanged between users, adding a gamified layer to the nostalgic feature.
For those unfamiliar with Facebook’s early days, poking was a simple, ambiguous gesture that allowed users to “nudge” one another. It didn’t serve a clear purpose, but it became a cultural artifact, sometimes playful, sometimes awkward, and occasionally interpreted as flirtatious. Over time, as Facebook evolved into a more complex social platform, the poke was quietly sidelined and largely forgotten.
Yet, Meta has been quietly working to revive the feature. In 2024, the company reported a 13-fold increase in poke activity after it began surfacing the feature in Facebook’s search bar. This unexpected surge prompted Meta to explore ways to reintroduce poking to a new generation of users, particularly young adults, a demographic the company has been actively trying to win back.
The poke revival aligns with Mark Zuckerberg’s broader strategy to bring back “OG” Facebook features, those that emphasize personal connections and interactions with real-life friends. In a statement earlier this year, Zuckerberg expressed interest in restoring the platform’s original social dynamics, including making it easier to discover content shared by actual friends rather than algorithmically promoted posts.
Meta’s renewed focus on younger users also plays a role in this strategy. With platforms like Snapchat and TikTok dominating youth engagement, Meta sees the poke, now reimagined with streaks and emojis, as a lighthearted way to appeal to a generation that values playful, low-effort interactions. The company hopes that by modernizing the poke, it can tap into the same behavioral patterns that make features like Snap streaks so addictive.
While the poke may never have had a clear function, its revival is a reminder of how tech companies often revisit old ideas in new contexts. Whether this nostalgic experiment will resonate with today’s users remains to be seen, but Meta is clearly betting that a little digital nudge might go a long way.
