Facebook's Friends Day reactions monster is here to terrify us all

While International Friendship Day was popularized by greeting card companies, Facebook went a step forward and coined its own birthday, Feb. 4 as Friends Day a few years ago.

Facebook, which has finally turned old enough to be a user on its own site, is marking the made-up holiday by bestowing its users with a personalized Friends Day video. The videos are similar to other auto-generated videos Facebook has done (like the ones for birthdays). with an eye-popping addition: a bizarre-looking humanoid creature, an apparent amalgam of reaction buttons and Facebook photos.

And it dances. Behold (full video below):

It's hard to look away from the beast, which we are dubbing the Facebook Reactions Monster. It dances, cheers and occasionally disappears from view, only to pop in from the frame much closer, its photos now clear -- they're profile pics of your friends, apparently harvested as raw material for this creature. Perhaps it's coming for you next.

Hideous animations aside, the video is far from the only thing Facebook is doing for Friends Day. The company hosted an event on "Inspirational stories of Friendship" at its Menlo Park headquarters this week, and captured the video. CEO Mark Zuckerberg -- who is definitely not running for president -- remarked to Facebook staff, “I think that this is a time in the world where there is more division than there has been in a while, and I think that that means that, you know, connecting friends and bringing groups together is probably more important now than it ever has been.”

COO Sheryl Sandberg continued, “I’m so excited and grateful to have all of you here so I’ve thought a lot about what community is, what friendship is... for me all of that comes together. Not in the product we build every day but in what you guys are and what you do.”

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

The video leaves us with "#friendsday," which is a great reminder that Facebook too has hashtags, because we definitely forgot.

What's more, Facebook Messenger will highlight friendship-themed GIFs to mark the occasion. No word if the Reactions Monster appears in any of them.

The features will be rolling out to all users over the next few days, so if you see your feed suddenly turned into a seemingly random celebration of friendship, don't be surprised. Happy Birthday, Facebook -- the rest of us will be running for our lives!