Emojis By Linda Stowe
In 1963 the State Mutual Life Assurance Company of Worcester, Massachusetts, was having a problem with employee morale as the result of a series of mergers and acquisitions. To boost employee morale as well as the firm’s image, the company paid graphic designer Harvey Ball $45 to come up with a cheerful logo to use in their campaign. In the span of ten minutes Ball sketched out the now familiar smiley face: a round yellow circle with a black line for a smile and two black dots for eyes. Thus, was born the first emoji.
I don’t know if that last sentence is true, but it feels right because I don’t recall a time before that when an image was used so pervasively to convey an emotion. Today, of course, there are thousands of emojis representing a range of emotions and things. Some people with a lot of time on their hands have created whole stories using only emojis. A less creative form of manga.
However, emojis are limited in what they can express. Some people have adopted slang for some emojis using fruits and vegetables to represent body parts, but overall emojis are limited in their ability to convey nuance. You might be able to develop a story about a little boy who has a donkey, but what if the little boy names the donkey Mango? You could show a donkey and a mango but there would be no way to link them because emojis don’t have a way to express verbs. And what if the poor donkey becomes mangy? It will suffer in silence because emojis have no way to express adjectives other than colors and numbers.
That’s the thing about pictures. It has been said that a picture can express a thousand words, but that’s only if you know the words in the first place. The reading habits of each generation seem to diminish. I wonder how long it will be before someone looks at a page containing just a boy, a donkey, and a mango and does not realize there is more to the story.
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Polly here.
This thoughtful piece made me think about how our society is changing in so many ways. But staying with this portion, I can’t help but think that our language is diminishing because of social media, emojis, and texting.
In the world of online writing, things are barely English anymore. For instance. Everything is an acronym. There are short words for long expressions. Punctuation is nearly gone. To take it further, cursive writing has all but disappeared. And now, people are using AI to create words for themselves. The thinking for ourselves is falling by the wayside.
With all that said. Technology is a wonderful thing. The internet is an endless fountain of knowledge. But, it is a double-edged sword. There are many pitfalls that are detrimental to our world.
We must choose carefully. I wish there was an Emoji for that.
Emojis By Linda Stowe
