GETTING EMOJI-NAL

We’re all guilty of using an emoji to mask what we would truthfully like to message people, what with its swift accessibility and the knowledge that they can be deemed as ambiguous (at times). Who wouldn’t be a fan of utilising such a ‘cartoon-esque’ keyboard?

For years now, people all around the world have been increasingly communicating with each other using emoji, a series of digital pictures and icons that convey a variety of ideas and concepts. We’ve all succumbed to it and responded to messages with a ‘mere’ thumbs-up or an ‘okay’ hand gesture symbol. Have we became lazy in our thought process to breed further communication, or, are we simply moving with the technological times? WhatsApp introduced them to the mainstream, but they work on other platforms too.

They are the offspring of the sometimes animated, sometimes still emoticons that those of us who were on the internet in the early 2000s would use to liven up our chats on MSN Messenger (while typing things like “ASL?” and using dial-up internet. And listening to Ja Rule. It was a dark time, okay?). Skype has offered animated emoticons for years, and recently added short video clips called Mojis that function as reactions during conversation. On Twitter, where the ever-popular GIF is overtaking photos as a means (memes?) of conversation, you can now access a “GIF keyboard” to find the perfect way to express yourself if words are just not cutting it.

More recently, Facebook has branched out from offering the simple “Like” response to friends’ posts, and included a whole new range of “reactions”. This trend has prompted some to wonder if online communication will eventually become “post-language”, or whether we should consider emoji as a language of its own.

Mostly, the move towards a more pictorial way of conveying meaning enables a more genuine emotional interaction with fellow humans. Plain text is often bad at letting us know the tone and delivery of a word, and we lose all non-verbal cues, too: body language, hand gestures and reactions. So, what’s next? Already, internet shorthand has bled into the real world, with words like “lol” “rofl” and “oh-em-gee” actually being said out loud in place of what they originally abbreviated. I will have to confess to such debauchery on the English language too. Guilty as charged and I blame it on my inner millennial which I find myself referring to more frequently amidst my everyday life, especially whilst working from my MacBook Pro amidst copper lighting, whilst drinking from a mere jam jar with an ‘oh-solovely’ striped straw.

The truth is, linguists are quick to point out that emoji still lack a system of grammar, therefore dismissing claims that they can ever function as a language on their own.

With Facebook’s new range of “reactions” and the growing use of GIFs and emoji, the way we interact online will continue to change. Words will always be important, but we’ll find new ways to make them even more meaningful... won’t we?