Facebook has been working on giving the iconic ‘Like’ button a makeover for the past year and has finally announced that it is ready to roll out the extended feature to the public soon. The ‘Like’ button of Facebook will soon be expanding to include 5 new options called “reactions.” The new ‘reactions’ will be love, haha, wow, sad and angry.

The new emoji-charged alternative to Facebook’s Like button is slated to be launched worldwide next week, the tech firm said on 27 January.  Reactions will not replace the Like button; instead it will be added as an extension feature. Users can start loving, wow-ing, or expressing sympathy to posts on Facebook by hovering or long-pressing the Like button wherever they see it.

Facebook’s chief product officer Chris Cox, is the man behind the creation of Reactions. The new emoji focused team, led by Cox, had compiled a list of the most popular user responses and categorised them accordingly, to come up with five key emotional responses: sad, angry, haha, wow and love. Facebook had initially also considered including “yay” to the list but axed the idea later, claiming that “it was not universally understood.” The social network giant began testing “reactions” in Spain and Ireland in October of last year.

Many Facebook users have been calling for a “dislike” button for years. However, Facebook rejected the idea because it was considered too negative.