Empty Emoticons

 

Some thoughts on the lack of emotion in emoting

These are just some thoughts Ive had in my mind for a while now and I don’t know valid they are but I figure I should let them out there anyway.

 

It’s about all those text emoticons(emojis) that we use in social media. You know, the laughter emoji, the crying emoji, the laughing out loud WHILE CRYING EMOJI,THE Im tilting my head to the side and laughing my head off emoji,et cetera et cetera.

 

These one-dimensional icons or tokens that we use as a sort of stand-in or substitute for actually having real conversations. Yeah, that’s where this is headed.

 

Its not just the emojis but all the similar little add-ons and features if you will, that social media offers from like buttons, the latest Instagram added love button or whatever its called (you know, the one where we actually “show our appreciation”for what the other person said or shared by dubbing it with a little heart emoji.

 

The truth is-and I genuinely feel this way-that all these little icons are actually holding us back from actually expressing our emotions in a real, honest way through conversation. Instead of furthering communication, they act in an ironic way as a means to end the conversation right then and there.

 

I have a feeling that the more we keep doing this,the more we keep ignoring an opportunity to actually talk to people,the more we evade the chance to actually communicate, not only does it make us drift even further apart but on a much deeper level, affects our ability to properly articulate our own thoughts and emotions.

 

See emotions are complex. They vary and they change and can be a mixture of things and it’s a real problem when we see them as something as monochromatic as what an emoji is supposed to represent.

 

I feel like we ought to talk more often. Tell people how we feel more often. Make an attempt to describe to describe our experiences or lack of experiences in our own, unique way. I feel like if you actually did laugh out loud watching a funny gif your friend sent you, you should actually put that in words and text them back instead of constantly relying on emojis that just serve a purpose of avoding things. At least most of them.

 

Now I ain’t no Shakespeare and Im barely good at anything, including writing. This whole mess of a blog should suffice as an example for that. But I do believe its important to try to express what we’re feeling well. We might not do it perfectly. But we can try.

 

And I do feel the more you emote, the more you’re conveniently wiggling your way out of conversations you don’t want to have while at the same time not being impolite in doing so. And I klnow that a lot of us have people in their lives who they just don’t feel like talking to. Or sometimes they’re too busy to respond. And that’s fine. This is just a personal thought on a personal blog. So its pretty much for myself.