Collegiettes, I write to you in a state of confusion and frustration. The world of emojis has changed, and I am not convinced it is for the better. I will start by discussing the Snapchat update, and I will then graduate to the iPhone one that seems to be more polarizing and frustrating.
To the Snapchat co-founders who are now billionaires and may or may not still own the company and care, I ask: What were you thinking with this new emoji system? Don’t you understand that girls were happy to lurk on their boyfriend’s best friends list? That system was so much more linear and understandable. Now I feel like I need an emoji dictionary to simply decipher all these faces. I don’t know or care about learning the difference between the blushy face emoji and the one wearing sunglasses. Frankly, that would take too much effort. Plus there’s the added pressure to keep snap “streaks” going. I’ve already gotten a few upset snaps about how I dropped the ball, and to those Snapchat friends, my apologies.
And Apple, where do I start? First, let’s discuss the emojis we iPhone owners actually want. These emojis include an avocado, a taco, less clocks, Miles Teller’s face (maybe that’s just a personal preference), the crying Kim Kardashian face, bacon, a pug and while we’re at it, all the MLB, NFL, NBA and NCAA team logos. Kudos to the new country flags however; those are a nice inclusive touch.
On to the elephant in this article: the African American emojis. What are we to make of these? Yes, they are long overdue, as the African American community has been highly underrepresented in emoji history, but they have also been met with backlash. A recent article in the Washington Post stated that these new emojis will perpetuate racist jokes on Twitter, texts and the like. I am not sure how to feel about this update’s implications as our society still seems to be in a struggle against racist humor and cultural inclusion. I think we can all agree on one thing though: the yellow default character emojis are creepy.