Facebook Is Trying to Bring Back Pokes Playing on the 2010s Nostalgia

Facebook wants its users to poke each other again. Not literally, but the feature Poke, which was a massive trend in the 2010s. Over time, the feature, however, lost its appeal, and the user base collectively stopped “poking” each other. However, the Meta-owned social media platform recently shared a post highlighting that Pokes are making a comeback, and that now it is easier to Poke friends and keep tabs on how many times users have used the feature on a particular friend.

Pokes are Back on Facebook

In the 2010s, Facebook was a much more experimental and quirky platform compared to today. It also had several features that were used very differently from how it was intended. Features such as Notes were designed as a micro-blogging and journaling space, but were used as chain quizzes and famous “25 things about me” posts.

Similarly, the Check-In feature was created to let users share the locations of restaurants and concerts, but users quickly began using it for humour tagging places such as “Checked-in at: the toilet” or “Checked-in at: Hell with Satan”.

Poke was one such feature. Facebook never explained the purpose of the feature, with its support page still describing it as “People can poke their friends on Facebook. When you poke someone, they'll get a notification.” But during the 2010s, the feature became popular among users, and many began using it as a way to nudge, annoy, or even flirt with others. Users would also keep streaks, making sure to “Poke back” as soon as they received the notification.

However, by the end of the decade, the feature lost its popularity, and people were not really using it anymore. Now, in 2025, Facebook is trying to bring back the trend. In a post on Instagram, the social media company said, “Pokes never really left, but they're making a comeback in a major way.”

The company is now adding a Poke button to the profile of users, next to the Messages button. Users can only see this button on profiles of people with whom they are friends, and cannot send a Poke to strangers. The company has also created a dedicated page, which you can find here, which keeps tabs on all the Pokes received by a user. It also shows the number of times one has been poked, allowing users to maintain a streak.

But will these new changes be enough to revive a dead trend? We will have to wait and see.