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if you use a brainless favourite click to mean anything besides "i enjoy the content of this post", you are putting way too much onus on the receiver to pretend to know you had any other meaning for it
i might seem cranky and dying on a very specific hill every other month about this stuff but like for how much we collectively agree that microblogging is a cancer on the internet and that by copying twitter the fediverse is far from exempt from it it sure feels like the same people are hellbent on perpetuating the worst brainrot about it
favourites are not sympathy, and especially on the fediverse favourites are not an algorithm booster
reply or boost if you have anything besides enjoyment for a question