Iconography - a study in emojis

People often grow irritated by an excessive use of emojis and emoticons, wishing for fewer smiley faces and more meaningful words to convey emotion, yet emojis have been around for millennia. With ancient hieroglyphs dating back to around 3300 BC, the use of symbols as a language is not a new concept - however, many of the potential sentiments capable of portrayal are modernized and even meta.

Emojis get a lot of flak for their seemingly immature usage. It's not uncommon to find an excessive usage of emojis in Facebook posts and tweets by teenagers. Some even use emojis as intensifiers, hoping to accentuate their "lol"s and "haha"s with laughing and crying emojis.

While it can be annoying to see "100" written repeatedly (typically used to indicate truth or sincerity), the nature of the emoji is intriguing. It serves as a symbol used to convey a message in place of text, yet it is also used alongside text. Studying symbols through iconography, it becomes apparent that emojis have their place in history as a culturally symbolic language.

Emojis bridge the gap between verbal and nonverbal communication. For instance: to indicate sadness, a person can use a crying emoji. No words were used to convey this message - just a tiny symbol - yet the emoji is not shown in person, but rather sent electronically. A picture allows for more flexibility/interpretation than a word or set of words, as it isn't often explicitly clear what the intended message is, yet it also is capable of holding the subtleties of nonverbal communication that words are unable to capture, e.g., the rolling of eyes, the look of shock, a feeling of general discomfort without any specific cause.

Emojis are also great for carrying waves of meaning without needing to use as many words - especially useful in the world of twitter, where character counts. In the same breath, our language is starting to tighten up, as abbreviations and shorthand become common. So, dear reader, do we succumb to the urge to use a laughing emoji in response to our friend's witty Facebook replies? Or do we resist and spell it out for them?

Image courtesy of pinterest