Record scratch. Freeze frame. You’re probably wondering how we got here. How, in 2025, when we have AI that can write poetry and cars that drive themselves, Mark Zuckerberg looked at Facebook’s roadmap and said, “You know what this needs? More awkward, meaningless digital shoulder taps.”

Well, buckle up, because Facebook Pokes are back with a vengeance, and this time they brought gamification. For Meta, what pokes lacked all along wasn’t purpose or meaning, it was competitive scoring. 

This isn’t Facebook’s first attempt at poke necromancy. They tried a zombie resurrection in 2017. They tried again last year. This year’s poke revival is part of Meta’s grand plan to restore “several OG Facebook experiences.”

The new poke system tracks how many times you and a friend have poked each other. Facebook has gamified your poke obsession with achievement badges. Rack up enough mutual pokes, and unlock exciting visual rewards like fire emojis and “100” symbols. They’re essentially trying to recreate Snapchat streaks, but for people who think sending daily photos is “too much effort.” 

The poke revival perfectly captures Meta’s relationship with culture: always one step behind and two degrees too corporate. They see trends as data points to optimize, rather than organic expressions of how people actually want to connect. It also shows Meta’s desperation to appear relevant to younger users by bringing back a feature that was already uncool when those same users were in elementary school.

Will people use the new poke feature? Some will, because the internet is vast and there’s an audience for everything. Will this be the feature that makes Facebook cool again, or prove to be a nostalgia miscalculation? Let’s see.

The revamped Poke feature is now available at facebook.com/pokes.

You can read more here.