OK everyone, I hope you don't mind, but i'm going to have a little rant about Emojis. They are starting to really annoy me, as well as baffle me. I'm a very un high- tech person who until recently only used a brick phone, couldn't be bothered with Facebook and had never heard of Whatsapp. However, i'm learning fast and although i'm pretty much a Ludite by nature, i'm trying to make my friends happy and keep up with how to communicate in this modern age!
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I had previously presumed Emojis were for children. My children seemed to be drawing on their school books and I'd seen them on teenagers t.shirts. I was at first interested, being the old raver/ acid house fan that I am. Now though, after being introduced to the wonders of social media messaging services, I am bombarded with them. I am bombarded with cartoon images of contrived emotions and inanimate objects that don't quite accurately describe someones reaction to a post.
My friends are ageing (bless them) and have only just cottoned on to this phenonema of using brightly coloured, superficial emblems rather than words. And they love them!
I might ask a simple question in a group chat and for the next two days, all through the night, ping...ping....ping goes my phone, with responses of not words, but tiny pictures of Noddy style trees and champagne glasses! Lots of ugly pictures, but where's my answer to what I asked? It's like i'm asking the Universe a question and my reply is in a curious code.
Would I be happy if the images were more beautiful? If they were more complicated, more profound? If, instead of a smiley face, someone sent me Mona Lisas enigmatic smile and I deduced from this that... what? Life is full of secrets? She is smiling, but I will never know why?
![13071fc6feb6770e431cabadd2dff815 mona lisa.png]
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https://goo.gl/images/WPm52o
I feel we are replacing the art of complicated, individual thinking that contains all our own quirky turns of phrase and opinion, with bland, cartoon reaction. Our opinions are being diluted. We are expressing ourselves blandly. We are turning beige and indifferent.
Linguists are comparing Emojis to Hyroglyphics. Professor Vyv Evans , Bangor University:
'As a visual language, emoji has already far eclipsed hyroglyphics, it's ancient Egyptian precursor which took centuries to develop.'
Emoji is being said to be the first International language, a language built from gestures and facial expressions. I like the idea of a new International language, but not one that is built from an idea that our expressions and sentiments are straight forward and basic. That everyone cries with laughter at the most simplistic joke and lives in happy, happy, joy, joy.
As Jonathon Jones writes in The Guardian:
'With it's poodles and noodles and happy poos, Emoji is becoming the fastest growing language in the UK. What a huge step back for humanity.'
![9f3d1686091e14c711b95993c04090a8 mona lissa.jpg]
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https://goo.gl/images/ZjX5U9
