Surfing the Waves of an Emoji Tsunami

(yellow heart)

From a practical standpoint, I learned to write the old fashioned way - with a pencil and a pad of paper. The pencil was one of those shorties that can’t spare the time for an eraser which, when you’re two and a half years old, doesn’t matter in the least because you don’t make mistakes at that age. Whatever you put down on paper is an absolute masterpiece.

It wasn’t long until my scribbling period was further informed by the lines, curls and circles known as the Latin Alphabet. This code, this secret piece of knowledge was handy to say the least. This set of 26 letters and the clandestine art of putting them together to make words and phrases suddenly made it possible to express even the most modest of emotions. The letters didn’t render shapes unnecessary, however; for it was inconceivable to create a note or a card without drawing a heart symbol after the letters M O M.

Drawing shapes is a timeless act of artistic expression. I still doodle flower figures whenever I’m taking notes. As a kid I drew all kinds of symbols and shapes—stars, hearts, clovers, trees, hearts, the sun (always with spiky rays emanating out into every direction), smiley faces, eighth-notes, quarter-notes, treble clefs; short stick figures for children, longer sticks for adults; stick-figured dogs with curled tails; stick-like cats with prominent whiskers, long fluffy tails and perfectly triangled ears.

Eventually, pencils gave way to felt pens, which in turn paved the way for ballpoint pens, to which I was loyal for many years until I cheated on my Bics with a dashing stylus. This brief dalliance with calligraphy pens—a beautiful but ultimately stifling relationship—ended as soon as I was introduced to the well-sculpted and formidable figure of the typewriter.

What a marvel, this tool! The luxury of seeing words appear on a sheet of paper as fast as you could think them up was a revelation. Having learned to play the piano at a young age, I found the act of typing to be fairly natural. Playing the notes in your head on a row of ivory keys is not so very different from conveying emotions and ideas on rows of lettered keys.

As a present for my college debut my father offered to buy me either a computer or an electronic typewriter. My choice. Of course, I chose the latter because: what would I do with a computer?

The virtue of the electronic typewriter, as opposed to the electric typewriter (which, in comparison to manual typewriters, offered less strenuous key action and automatic returns) was that you could easily underline, bold, or italicize text. My Canon Typestar had a basic memory function with a “1 line self-correction feature” so I could read my text in the small preview screen on the front of the machine before hitting RETURN and watching the machine dutifully hammer out the script onto the page.

After college, I landed a job which required typing many notes per day. These notes, known as “email,” ranged from short to long messages, informational to inquisitive; formal or amusing. Emails could be addressed to one person, or many, many people simultaneously which, in essence, not only saved time in getting your message out but also saved money on stamps. For embellishment, you might include in your note an emoticon that conveyed a general emotion, or that added emphasis in case whatever you had just written was not adequate enough, if you know what I mean. ;-)

Emoticons were soon replaced by emojis - pictorial representations of the punctuated and time-consuming symbols that preceded them. Now instead sending combinations of colons and an un-twinned parenthesis, you could select an actual image of a waxing yellow and perfectly smiling face.

It didn’t take long before the initial wave of basic smiley & frowny faces and gold stars grew into an ocean of emoji options. Simple faces and the traditional red heart were no longer enough! These classics were joined by a community of various hand gestures, full figured people and a multitude of yellowish facial expressions: faces crying, faces tilted and laughing, faces with one large teardrop; faces blushing, faces vomiting, faces with buckets of tears pouring from both eyes; faces so angry the eyes are reduced to two tiny dashes, or so full of affection the eyes are replaced with two hearts. Red hearts now sat next to blue, green, yellow, pink and black hearts. Disembodied faces shared space with raised hands, praying hands, clapping hands, flags, planes, trains, ferries, flowers and automobiles.

Suddenly, I was overwhelmed and there seemed to be no available tutor to help me navigate this new pictorial alphabet. I am in favor of progression of language, which should always be adapting to whatever the current time necessitates. New worlds require new words. But I admit to feeling a little lost in the current tsunami of emoji options, the fact of which has turned me into a nervous digital communicator. I can text out a sentence without serious incident, but inevitably, any time I click on the white smiley face to open the emoji vault on my phone, I am worried that I will not choose the right one.

What if this certain face has an underlying meaning I am unaware of? Which pigment do I chose for the person I’m texting? Will they be offended if it’s too light or too dark? Are those two people dancing or falling in love?

I worry that I don’t fully understand the technical difference (meaning: meaning) between the face with two heart eyes and the face with three little hearts around it. Does my verbal response need the support of a purple heart or a pink heart? What exactly is the pink heart with the yellow stars?? I like it, and I have received it, but I don’t know what it means. Is there a Manual of Style for proper use of emojis, or are we all just winging it out there?

Original Photo by Danielle-Claude Bélanger

As we communicate in person less and less, it’s possible the incoming waves of emojis will become more complex. 30 years ago, we could get by with simple visual representations of “I feel happy” or “I am angry.” But now, we have mostly committed ourselves to an increasing amount of isolated socialization. From forced home schooling during the pandemic to a masked up return to the office, to starting a first or new job where your desk is 15 feet from your bedroom, or—worse—IN your bedroom, the fact is that people don’t talk to people in person very much any more. It is not uncommon for someone to start a job, and after two or three years, still not have met even one of their teammates in the flesh.

In this new world, where it’s rare to walk into someone’s office or cubicle to get a look at their face IRL as you’re collaborating with them IRT, it makes sense that the simple “I feel happy” or “I am angry” emojis of yesteryear no longer cut it. Going forward, we will need more sophisticated and emotionally complex emojis, representing what we would say to someone in person if we actually could:

“Overall your proposal has legs, but I feel it’s not exciting enough for the prospective client to consider seriously.”

“Damn, you are ON to something! How can I help get this off the ground?”

“How confident are you that this additive will not compromise consumer well being?”

“That’s the dumbest fucking idea I’ve ever heard!” (Or: is that what the poop + smiling eyes emoji is for ?)

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Even so, all waves—even the largest, smiliest ones—must eventually recede. The emojification of our daily correspondence has left many of us running back to paper, pens, and typewriters in the hopes of finding more satisfaction in our time spent writing, day-dreaming and corresponding. My personal favorite is my 1932 Royal typewriter on which the most intricate symbol I am able to create is the exclamation point.

To render the ! requires three separate keystrokes:

[ ‘ ]

[BACK SPACE]

[.]

Given the effort needed, it would seem that in circa 1932, the exclamation point was a precious resource to be used sparingly and only when absolutely necessary. If a feeling conveyed the requisite levels of excitement, frustration, anger or shock, then, sure! you would put in the work and make those three separate movements:

Apostrophe.

Back Space.

Period.

But odds are, after that, you left it at just one of those, because the effort required to put that symbol down on paper three times was not insignificant. Whatever deep and wild sentiment set a heart and fingers on fire to such a degree to warrant three (or more) exclamation points - I can’t even imagine it!!!

I understand that the younger generations are tending to eschew emojis altogether. Like Facebook, they are considered outdated tools used only by old people. Too cartoonish for these serious times, I suppose. On one hand, this is reassuring, but on the other, not entirely so, given that I was not able to comprehend the finer nuances of the emoji-verse, even while they were in fashion. I wanted to get them, wanted to understand their value, and how I could make them work for me, as a person expressing myself. Just as I did whenever I took the time to refine, embellish and perfect the prefab artwork on a golden new Pee Chee folder.

Speaking of, I just realized that I am fresh out of Bic pens.

Thank you for reading.

{| AC

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