We’ve all been there. Resting our heads in our palms and asking basically anyone who will listen what the heck bae means by “fine” and the likes. It’s frustrating to be in a position in which you have to question the duality of the response your significant other sends without the context of tone or emotion.
However, this can be easily rectified with the use of emoticons or emojis. I’m not quite sure how society lived with virtual communication without the extensive list of possible emotions you didn’t know you were feeling until the options glowed bright across the bottom of your screen and bam: ‘I can relate to that!’ That little, hideous, red faced devil is my exact mood at this very moment. Although, I think if bae says they’re fine and you respond with the devil he may block you, but that just my opinion.
Let’s take a trip down memory lane, shall we? The year is 2006, you’ve just gotten off the school bus and you can finally, after spending a stressful day surrounded by all of your friends, log on to your AOL account to instant message them some more. On this day, something is different though….
Your ‘ Heyyy (-:’ is suddenly replaced by a smiling face rather than your parenthesis-dash- colon combo. Your ‘wats up :*’ and ‘nm u? 0:-)’ are suddenly kissing faces and angels with halos. You’ve entered a whole new ball game. Suddenly your emotions have a face. A large, round, yellow face, but it’s yours and you can’t contain your excitement. You spend the rest of the evening learning the different ways in which your symbol bar combinations can morph before your eyes into little faces showing just how you really are feeling.
It’s been a decade since AIM was in it’s prime and yet people still can’t get enough of emojis. Suddenly, you can say something horribly mean to anyone and follow it by crying from laughing face and all is well.
Suddenly “Hey (smirking emoji)” holds a different connotation than that of a normal greeting. The way we communicate has changed.
So why, for the love of all that is mighty doesn’t bae just use their emoji? The gods in Japan created these little indicators for the sanity of millenials everywhere, and they neglect to even hint at the context in which they are ‘fine.’