Confusion of the Like

In 2007 FriendFeed introduced the original Like button; it was just a clickable text with the fitting word, "Like". Then, Facebook introduced their infamous thumbs up accompanying their "Like" button (details of the history of the Like button). And up till about last week, Facebook only had the option to "Like"; now, they have more emotional responses (detailed in an amazing Medium post).

I genuinely like Facebook's Like implementation as my signature pose includes two thumbs up. It was simply a method of showing your approval.

YouTube has implemented the thumbs up/down, which also is intuitive.

But then it gets confusing. Let's look at Medium, Twitter, and Tumblr:

As you can see, they use the international symbol for love, the heart. But as you can see by the tooltip, each of the services consider it as a "like".

When did the heart symbol turn into the symbol for "Like"?

I don't approve the implementation of the heart for "like" because it is the symbol for love. Personally, as someone who has been quite conservative with my emotions throughout my life, I find it really difficult clicking on a heart to "like" something; it doesn't feel right. I reserve my heart for more emotional content. As a result, my participation on Facebook far surpasses my "like" activity on the other services. I liked Twitter's Favorite star but that has been replaced by the "like" heart; though it did have an elitist feel to it.

While I understand the basic mechanics of how these "Like"s work and the effect it has on users' experiences, I remain reluctant to click on a heart. But if it's a thumbs up, I'm all in! Though I may be a scrooge in passing out my hearts, I just don't find much content that deserve such an emotional display. (Maybe I'm not following the right content for me)

I can see it now: My future child is going to receive a note from another child saying "I <3 You!" and will spend countless hours deliberating its true meaning; is it love or the devalued like?.