Emojis !?!?!?

Maybe it's that thing about learning a different language when you're older. I can pick up a bit here and there, no problem. But the rest?  They are an artificial language, one in pictures. You might think they'd be easier to understand. In fact I wonder if they weren't designed for the illiterate among us, too uneducated to read, to understand large and subtle concepts, so lets communicate in pictures instead. Our ancient ancestors did,  telling stories on cave walls with animals and stick figures.

When they started out, they were just yellow circle faces, replacing what we were trying to convey by adding shapes of non-alphabetical keyboard options to make faces. Smiley face, the first. Then frowning. Puzzled. Angry. So many of us have been familiar with these yellow faces from those posters with all the different expressions to help sort out what we're feeling. You know, because we're not actually taught for the most part about feelings, just told to stuff them and get on with whatever our duties are. Finish our homework. Go to work. Obey whoever is in power over us. Yield to whatever our religious teachings, and those who teach them, say. We get into trouble from stuffing those feelings, so face drawings help us dig them out.

They started getting more complex. Sometimes the drawings were puzzles. You had to study them to find the difference from the last one, like just how widely open the mouth was compared to that other one which meant something else. Were the ones with tears with different mouths crying, or laughing so hard they got tears? That's when some of us started needing translators. But it just kept getting more complicated.

The hands weren't so bad. Praying hands, obvious. Clapping, thumbs up or down, raised fist, middle finger raised, all easy to get since we actually do communicate that way. It just didn't stop however. For a few you needed to know ASL, like the extended thumb, index and pinkie fingers, meaning "I love you." Red hearts said the same thing, even adding flourishes. I still mentally read them as "heart" like for that TV show Bob Hearts Abishola. Still not sure about the unicorns though: happy childish fantasy? Irrationality?

I looked at a long row of emojis a couple days ago which had animals, fruits, buildings, each a new level of confusion. Hey, I get the pile of poo. Who doesn't, though I wonder does it really need a smile? "I'm happy to call you a piece of shit?" But who on earth decided to use an eggplant? First, I've not yet seen an actual eggplant in that shape. The ones in the stores tend to be rounder, fatter, less long or curved. You can tell it's an eggplant emoji from the color it's drawn in. So what did it mean? Were they hungry? Pushing veggies in the diet? When the snickers started, I figured it out what they were trying to say, or perhaps just what somebody decided it ought to be translated as. Sort of a "here's a picture, what shall we do with it?" But I still don't get why the eggplant is supposed to represent a penis. A spherical thing is supposed to be a cylindrical thing? A bent thing is supposed to represent a straight thing - uh, except when it's a carrot in a commercial for something horrible to be prevented? Something huge is supposed to fit where... well, you get the puzzlement. Why not a mushroom of more appropriate proportions? When they added a peach, complete with more snickers, I just greeted it with resignation. Somebody out there is just sick. Repressed. Dismissive. And badly, badly in need of some sex education.

But now buildings? It's bad enough trying to figure those out, but worse, each presents in about a 3/8 inch size when added to rows of text in an attempt to communicate better than words, or add emphasis. I can see just enough to figure out it is a building. But what kind? House? Store? police station? Library? I have no clue. The details - I can see there are details - are too tiny. WTF are you trying to say? And why this way? 

Some of these are so obscure the only message coming across is, "Hey, I'm a member of the in group and you aren't." We humans are already so expert at sending that message that many people spend large portions of their lives saying it in every way possible. We certainly don't need another way to do that, but when has that ever stopped people? Some of the obscure ones might just be saying, "See how unique and creative and smart I am that I developed this and you don't get it?" They'd be worth the admiration if what they developed actually was comprehensible. Communication is supposed to be just that, comprehensible. 

One that is comprehensible to me, delighting in the snark of it, is a coupling of two emojis, tater tots and pears. It's a way of mocking the way so many people, rather than doing anything, even simply speaking up, to end a bad situation like gun violence (to name just one) offer others their "thoughts and prayers." Not a hug for the ones grieving, not sitting down to talk with them, find out how they're doing, offering a listening ear. Big help, eh? Just "tots and pears". It's for when you are too helpless to give actual comfort, but want to rely on your faith to pretend things are OK when they aren't, it's all you (think) you have to offer and think it means something. It's also for when you really have no major problem but are out garnering sympathy over nothing and don't deserve any, you may get tots and pears, folks. A little nothing  for a nothing problem. Ironically, at least the foods have a use. Nutrition. Comfort food even. 

Who knows what's next from emojis? I certainly am years behind. Besides not understand so many of them, I don't even use them. Never saw the need to figure out how. I'll just go on happily typing away, communicating the old fashioned way.  : )   : )   : )