A Facebook poke is a feature on the social media platform that lets users send a single virtual notification to a friend. The purpose of a poke is to say hello or get the attention of someone else. It can also be a reciprocal hello, especially when a person has been poked and chooses to respond. The feature was popular in the early days of Facebook as a cute and timid way to virtually flirt or just say hello, but its popularity has significantly declined over the past few years. Today, pokes still exist but it’s hardly straightforward, and receiving a casual poke from different people can leave you with bizarre mixed messages. Some alternate meanings to the Facebook poke have been suggested, such as using it to determine the level of someone else’s sexual interest, and a reciprocal poke could lead to a real or virtual meeting with another similarly minded person. However, Facebook Pokes have been marginalized from the site and seem to exist only as an homage for the early days of the social network.