Early Emojis were homemade: :) for happy, :( for sad, <<< go away. I refused to use these because I hadn't thought them up myself. It wasn't long before ready made yellow Emojis began appearing everywhere. The worst were the gifs, the moving ones, the laughing, the crying, the barfing ones. No way would I condescend. But then I noticed an emoji key for my texts and emails on my phone keyboard. The party animals I know would send three to four wineglass emojis. OK, I'll try one wine glass. Just one. Well my life didn't suddenly get worse. Neither did it get any better. At least no one showed up to confiscate my diplomas. I actually found the smiling emoji useful to terminate an exchange of texts that was going nowhere. 🙂 How do you respond to that? You don't.
Now I read this study from a prestigious university saying that a smiley face sent from an Apple device may be received as a frowny face on a Google device. Son of a biscuit! Not only that, some people perceive a smiling face as patronizing or smirky. You just can't win.
From now on, I'm going to spell out my emojis. e.g. "smiley face here," or "empathic face," or whatever the situation requires. Words are more subtle, more flexible than images. I can describe a smiley face with a quizzical, or querulous left or right eyebrow. My empathic face can also say, that's all well and good my friend, but shouldn't you really get a job? 🍷🍷
4 comments:
I feel the same way about emoji as I do about using cuss words.
Emoji-smoji. Let's leave them to the illiterate who just don't have the vocabulary to come up with their own descriptions (stern face with finger wagging beside, as in 'don't you dare'). They've always struck me as suitable for grade school - the lowest grades, that is. (stick figure of a little tyke here). Yet, one never knows. It is possible that in our fast-paced (little race car here)and dumbed-down (head with dunce cap here)world (globe here), the emoji may just wipe out the beauteous languages of our planet (tearful face here). I guess then when we encounter each other (handshake symbol here), we'll just have to hold up our little signs with symbols on them because I haven't met anyone yet who can speak emoji. Tragic thought (image of King Lear here).
CatherineS (image of Russian queen here)
When we are born, we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.
"The world's a stage, but the play is badly cast." -Oscar Wilde
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