In Defense of Emojis

Okay, maybe this is a really dumb post and one I'll completely roll my eyes at in ten years, but this is something I've been mulling over for a while and I feel like it's something I need to express.

The other day (a few weeks ago, really) a friend posted the results of his "ISideWith" quiz. Several older members of his family wrote scoffing comments along the lines of "bah, millenials" (which is another thing entirely that I won't even get into today). One of the comments following a comment about how 'millenials are going to destroy this country' was saying, "At least they have their [sic] emogies!"

At the time I was too irritated by their attitudes about millenials and politics that I mostly ignored that comment, but the more I thought about it later, the more it bothered me. What's wrong with emojis? Why have they been met with such seeming vitriol by older generations that they use it as fodder for mockery?

While I will certainly admit that many members of Generations Y and Z may not be the best at communication, especially of the face to face variety, I do not think emojis are inherently bad. In fact, I think they can be a great boon to us in the age of digital communication, where tone of voice and facial expressions are stripped away. They are the younger generations' way of injecting emotion into an emotionless situation.

Take, for example, the following sentence. "Haha, that's hilarious." If I include a :) or even a 😂, my meaning of sincerity is more clear- I do in fact find this hilarious. But let's say I want to be sarcastic (a common occurrence for me, which should be shocking to no one). I could say, "Haha, that's hilarious. 😐" That simple little 'face' completely changes the tone of my sentence! In some cases, an emoji on its own even expresses my feelings more accurately than words really can- like the heart emoji, or the 😍 emoji, or even 😢.

So yeah, go ahead and mock my generation for using emojis/emoticons/whatever you want to call them. But at least we know when we're serious. ;)