With Facebook, you're not really allowed to be unhappy. Think

Hear the voice of Yishan Wong, who spoke not merely of machines and networks, but of the soul of our age: “With Facebook, you’re not really allowed to be unhappy. Think about it: there’s only a like button. Yes, you can be angry, but it’s only lighthearted rage. On Reddit, perhaps because you can be anonymous, people are willing to be openly sad or angry. They are more honest.” These words are not idle observation, but prophecy, for they reveal how the instruments of our time shape not only our speech, but our hearts.

The ancients knew that the marketplace of voices can be as dangerous as it is lively. In the Athenian agora, men spoke freely, but their words were bound by the expectation of applause or condemnation. Today, the agora is not of stone, but of pixels, and yet it binds us still. On Facebook, the like button becomes a tyrant cloaked in gentleness, allowing only joy, triumph, or the mask of light-hearted anger. The sorrowing heart finds no altar there; the despairing voice has no ear to hear it. And so, many conceal their wounds behind smiling masks, prisoners of a culture that demands perpetual happiness.

But on Reddit, cloaked in anonymity, the mask can be cast aside. There, men and women speak of grief, of rage, of loneliness, unashamed, for no familiar eye can condemn them. Wong calls this honesty, and he is right: the truth of humanity is not always bright. It is shadow and flame, hope and despair, laughter and lament. When we allow only one half of the soul’s song to be sung, we deceive both ourselves and others, and the harmony of truth is broken.

History offers us many warnings of this truth. Recall the court of Louis XVI, where nobles adorned themselves in silks and jewels, masking the hunger and misery of the people beyond the palace gates. In that glittering world, to speak of sadness or rage was forbidden; only the illusion of joy was allowed. Yet beneath the mask, the people’s anger grew, until it erupted as revolution. So too, in our modern palace of likes, where sorrow is silenced and only cheer paraded, we risk breeding despair in secret, despair that festers when unacknowledged.

Yet we must not condemn the platforms alone. The root lies in ourselves, for it is we who fear to reveal weakness, we who crave validation. The like button is powerful because it feeds our hunger for approval. But true strength lies not in being adored, but in being known—in allowing others to see the whole of us, both the triumph and the wound. Only then can true community be born, not one of hollow applause, but of shared humanity.

From Wong’s words arises a lesson for all generations: do not be deceived by the stage-lights of social praise. Seek instead the places and the people where you may be honest. If your sorrow weighs heavy, speak it. If your anger burns, name it. For the heart that is silenced is the heart that withers, but the heart that speaks—even through tears—finds healing. And when you hear the sorrow of another, do not turn away; answer not with a like, but with compassion.

Therefore, let all who hear take this counsel: use the tools of the age, but do not be enslaved by them. Post not only the smile, but the truth. Offer not only the shallow click, but the deep ear. Be to others a space of honesty, so that they too may unmask themselves without fear. In this way, you will build not the hollow court of false joy, but the enduring fellowship of souls bound together by truth.

Thus, the teaching endures: joy without sorrow is a lie, and rage without honesty is a jest. To live truthfully, we must embrace the whole of our being, and dare to be seen not only in light, but also in shadow. For it is in the union of both that true humanity, and true community, is found.