thesis: the generational and connotative divide between emoticons and emojis is that emoticons are improvised and emojis are purpose-built
:) is like a little bit of humanity peeking out of the machine, saying "this system wasn't made to be used this way but I figured out how to send you a little smile"
😀 represents the machine re-asserting control by helpfully providing a set of emotions that is more flexible and readable, but is also limited to a fixed set, discouraging improvisation
🍆 represents the re-emerging resilience of the human spirit as we find new ways to break the machine's rules and repurpose its limited tools to express forbidden concepts
I have no idea where I'm going with this, I had another asthma attack and they gave me a lot of prednisone and it's hard to describe what that does to your brain but definitely something
Btw the podcast ologies just came out with "curiology" a two-part episode on emojis, with people from emojipedia and Unicode
Very interesting look at how emojis started, how they decide on new ones and how people give them different meanings! Yes they talk about the eggplant emoji