X People Missed the Like Button

About

X People Missed the Like Button is the format for comments on Youtube where “X” typically refers to how many people clicked on the dislike button.

Other variations on the phrase revolve around how many people clicked on the dislike button as well.

Examples:

84 people missed the like button
823 people missed the dislike button
49 ppl should have jumped off a cliff or be murdered by solid snake
The 462 people who don’t like this video are stupid
27 idiots missed the like button
20 people here watch Twilight
14 Templars don’t know where the Like button is.
240 People are Beliebers

There have also been comments describing how many people “hit” or “clicked” “the like button,” albeit less common. If a video is particularly bad, the phrase “X people missed the dislike button” is not uncommon.

Source: Youtube Layout Changes

On January 21, 2010, Youtube.com started experimenting with several layout changes, especially on its watch pages.

One of these changes was Youtube’s removal of the traditional Five-star rating system, and its subsequent replacement with a new “I like this / I dislike this” system. Although the changes were available as an opt-in service in January, the changes rolled out to all users on April 1st, 2010.

Soon, as many users began to use the like/dislike system, people began to joke that certain users clicked the dislike button because they “missed the like button.”

Popularity

The following information is current as of August 5, 2010:

Although the phrase is the most popular on youtube, the phrase is also used on pages that embed youtube videos. There are 3,760,000+ results for the exact phrase, “Missed the like button” on Google.

On Youtube itself, there are also 220,000+ results for “people X the like button” and 517,000+ results for “X the like button.”

According to Youtube comment search, a comment saying “missed the like button” occurs every several minutes or so.

A variation, “X people who disliked this are Y” occurs on Youtube every hour or so.

X People Missed the Like Button

The X People who disliked this are Y

Trolling?

Quite a few threads have been made about “X People Missed the Like Button” and other related Youtube comments on various forums. Generally, the comments are perceived as unoriginal and annoying, but variations of the “X People Missed the Like Button” comments (especially those that relate to the video’s subject matter) are not as disliked.

Trending Backlash

[via Urlesque & researcher Chris Menning]