Interesting, but I am old. I'm permanently freed from worrying over looking old. I am not the "your" in this "by the time your grandmother starts using it" test. I am the grandmother. I mean, I'm not a grandmother. I have no grandchildren. But I'm 75. I'm so far within the age group that there's nothing even to quibble about. It is therefore impossible for me to work on my emojis as a way to look young. My use of any emoji make not only makes me look old. It makes the emoji look old. Apparently, I have the power to make emojis look old.
Just as I'm drafting this post, I'm getting an emoji from Meade, answering a text I sent at 4:30 a.m.:
Being up at 4:30 a.m. makes me look old, as does the inability to watch a baseball game that begins at 9:10 p.m. But if you don't look, you can have a "live" experience in the morning if you're careful where you click, but...
Not being able to see the teeny tiny emojis is also making me look old. But this is my new freedom. Not to care about emojis. They're not for me. They are for teenaged girls. Read that NYT headline: "When it comes to emoji usage, we’re all just following teen girls." Yeah, you are. I'm not.
From the article: "Teenagers, particularly teenage girls, have always been at the forefront of linguistic change, according to Sali A. Tagliamonte, a professor of linguistics at the University of Toronto. (Among her five children, her daughters use emojis but her sons don’t, she said.) Women tend to have more social ties and a bigger emotional vocabulary, researchers said. And as people age, their language becomes more stable...."
Good. Let teenage girls have their teenage girl things to themselves. It's nice. For them.
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I'm boring in the emoji department, and I don't use them much. I suspect this is an ageless quality of mine.
The "monkey no see" emoji (never heard of it before, which figures) is intriguing, though. Maybe I'll experience a turnaround?
1. Don’t the Brewers have the best record in baseball?
2. I hate emojis. Many are ambiguous. I don’t get if they are laughing, crying or what. Words are better.
From Orwell in 1984 : “It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies and nosers-out of unorthodoxy.” ...and users of emoji, I might add...
I use a handful of them fairly often. I can never easily find the “new” ones people have sent me, so I no longer bother expanding my quarry of emojis. I’m old, too. I get to not gaf.
I don’t ever remember seeing teenage girls at the forefront of linguistic change except for the trendy language we mocked as originating from teenage girls. I’d need examples of true change what stuck…
I just watched a video a day or two ago that talked about young women being at the forefront of linguistic change.
During our recent summer in Canada, we frequently commented on the variety of road sign icons used there. There's an icon for "spa" (it's disturbingly reminiscent of the "Welcome To Schitt's Creek" billboard). There's an icon for "brewery" (a beer stein with a proper two fingers of foam). "Winery" - a bottle, of course. One sign incorporates a gear, a microscope, a cartoon atom, and something else - obviously it means there is something sciencey ahead, but we never figured out what. And there are symbols whose meaning we could never discern because they were so complicated and we were passing them so quickly.
WRT emojis, I've searched fruitlessly for one that looks like this - 😳 - but without the blush, to denote plain old shock without embarrassment. I conclude that emoji designers don't feel shocked without also feeling embarrassed, for some reason.
Braciatores delendi sunt. Eamus catuli.
…that video kind of supports my point mary beth- so much conclusion not much evidence. Where’s examples of the girl talking boys? It all reeks of the flop sweat academic studies that always conclude women are superior…
I too have entered the freeing embrace of TODC.
Too old. Don’t care.
🙄
The guy giving the girl-voice talk is himself talking with a bit of a girl voice. Certainly compared to broadcasting men of yesteryear.
This reminds me of something I noticed in Italy. I don’t have a lot of Italian, so I can listen to them without understanding the words. The men speak musically: lots of pitch changes, and gracefully sliding one syllable into another. The women speak rather harshly: staccato rhythm, using the lowest pitch they can muster, etc. Almost like they are compensating for being men or women. The man wants to make you less frightened of him, while the woman wants you to take her more seriously.
Arabs and Russians, on the other hand, tend to lean into their genders: the men speak as deeply as possible, while the women almost go into a falsetto.
Not sure what to make of all this, except that we Americans are not the only people to assign speech patterns to genders. CC, JSM
I started my legal career later in life - mid 40s when I got my degree. As a first year associate at Ropes & Gray I noticed that one of the senior associates on a litigation team used emojis in every fucking e-mail. I thought it made her look like a teenage girl and told a few other associates my thoughts. I was quickly shunned as the old curmudgeon - probably rightly so. But I’ve always felt that emojis should only be used by the under 17 crowd and never in a professional setting.
I enjoy the Astros in the AL (they wouldn’t lead the division otherwise), but hate being in the West. The Brewers won. 😎
Emojis, btw, r jst teen shorthand, lol, fyi.
They are just another form of language. A way for people to communicate.
Like a shrug or a smile or a laugh.
My running joke with my wife it that when she responds to one of my texts with an emoji, it's time for the nursing home.
I remember the original emoji: the yellow happy face circle. I was a teenager when I saw the first happy face button. Didn’t originate with the Good Guys T-shirt?
But when you think about it, especially at 4:30am, words are really just sono-mojis. Every F-ing letter in every F-ing word is a representation of a sound. And when you string certain sounds together they make a word that means something to certain groups of people in certain places around certain worlds. Thus, language.
Teens have said, screw that. Let's just go with tiny pictures instead of long strings of sounds.
Girls play with tiny emoticons in the twilight. Boys play with tiny scripts in the dark. Autistic or artistic coding? Nit-Twitter evolution, perhaps. No Italians.
WMCA
“ Like a shrug or a smile or a laugh.”
More like playing a laugh track to express that in your mind, you perceive humor,. Or holding up a photograph of somebody else smiling to assert that indeed you do feel happy inside.
Ouroboros or cyclical speech patterns? Perhaps human civilization is evolving, progressing to the past. What are the other anachronistic practices common in modern families?
You're just too cool for everything.
And you accept your own place as a lesser by continually belittling other women. Here, teenage girls... sooooo Mallory Keaton. Good thing your were acting an adult upurself, so past their petty ways... what an east coast cooler than thou city girl you always have been... with the gays so s to prove it. Lol 😆 🤣 😂
Speaking of language, whatever happened to Esperanto? And how come the Japanese and Chinese are so smart if their languages are based on stick figures? But seriously, English is becoming and almost already is the global language.
Teenage boys don’t talk like teenage girls. Teenage girls are at the forefront of influencing other teenage girls. Teenage boys are at the forefront of influencing teenage boys.
And what the fuck is a wilting flower emoji?
Every generation thinks they invented slang, sex, drugs, and music. Eternal recurrence.
Are asterisks an icon or emoji? But no Italians.
Althouse, if David’s Sinclair’s clinical trial to reverse glaucoma succeeds, you might have to recalculate your perception of your age. Kurzweil says that by 2030, meds and treatment will halt and then reverse the aging process.
I'll bite: What does WCMA stand for? I did try to Google it, but came up with nothing that struck me as relevant.
Ann Althouse said...
“ Like a shrug or a smile or a laugh.”
More like playing a laugh track to express that in your mind, you perceive humor,. Or holding up a photograph of somebody else smiling to assert that indeed you do feel happy inside.
But in this case there is also the signal of tribal belonging.
The kids are signaling both that they belong to the tribe and they differentiate themselves from the other.
Some people try to join the emoji tribe. The kids call them boomers.
My main thing about emojis, acronyms, abbreviations and the like is this: Do they expand clarity, or do they not? If people don't know what something means, what's the point?
Here’s the link to Sinclair’s clinical trial:
https://www.lifebiosciences.com/life-biosciences-announces-first-patient-dosed-in-phase-1-trial-of-er-100-for-optic-neuropathies/
I understand the "in-group" factor. But otherwise, if they don't support clarity in communication, what's the point?
Wilting flower emojis happen in emotional deserts, thus the authoritarian complex, and low emission environments that are a first-order forcing of climate change. Girls do not usually occupy either space. Is human life a viable choice on a forward-looking basis? Perhaps this is just a minority ethnic development. Abort, recycle, sequester?
"The kids call them boomers."
The article is about Gen Xers and Millennials looking old by using overused emojis and not the new ones.
Not sure how old you are, but the "OK Boomer" attitude played out more than 5 years ago. Boomers are obviously old, which is what I'm saying in the post. People who are fragile about *looking* old are younger.
“Women have a bigger emotional vocabulary” is typical Experts Say bullshit.
re: Googling WCMA
Have you tried Binging it? But never Yahoo! Duck 🦆 Goose ... 🥚
"I'll bite: What does WCMA stand for? I did try to Google it..."
It's WMCA. I could sing it for you. Look it up with "Good Guys" and happy face and t-shirt.
I'm at an age where I don't merely not care how old my emojis make me look, I rarely use emojis at all because I consider them a lazy half-assed substitute for thinking and communicating.
Here's a nice picture: https://www.facebook.com/groups/305822250035382/posts/860084457942489/
Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association is context sensitive. 🐄👍🤠
We're trying to encourage our grandson, who is almost 2, to speak more. Apparently it's considered normal for boys to develop their speech later than girls, on average. When he does speak, he knows the words and forms sentences, so we know he's paying attention. He just doesn't feel like talking. So when he tries to get some need met, we tell him, 'Use your words'. That pretty much sums up what I think about emojis.
I use the ok emoji. 👌 That makes me a white supremacist.
rcommal said...
I understand the "in-group" factor. But otherwise, if they don't support clarity in communication, what's the point?
Pretending to understand is more important than understanding.
Just look at the democrat party. They don't know why they are supposed to want penises in girls bathrooms. But they say whatever they need to do to signal they are still with the tribe.
Part of the system is the lack of clarity. It is necessary. Language is by nature non-deterministic. This is what makes LLMs so powerful.
Women Men 🧀 ... Association
👍 🍑 = thumb up the ass
**Jamie said...During our recent summer in Canada, we frequently commented on the variety of road sign icons used there. **
Canadian highways will distract you with billboard signs admonishing you to not drive distracted. I live here and I'm not sure what the microscope is supposed to indicate, but my conclusion is the same as yours--something sciency.
You can still buy a shirt, Althouse: https://www.ebay.com/itm/317901810796
I am so on the same page as you with emojis. I couldn't care less.
And as for the idea that "...teenage girls, have always been at the forefront of linguistic change, according to Sali A. Tagliamonte, a professor of linguistics at the University of Toronto", I would say that...it's probable that teenage girls are at the forefront of much of all of the thinking of our university professors these days. Some ex-law professors excluded, of course.
Teenage girl speak is something that has long been ridiculed. The only people who speak it or follow it are other teenage girls, teenage boys who want to get in the pants of other teenage girls, TV hosts, and professors.
The rest of the world just rolls their eyes and wonders how we ever got to the place where our kids cannot read, add, or write a sentence, but they talk like that.
Are teenage girls responsible for up-talk and vocal fry too?
Teenagers aren’t fluent in the lost art of rebus.
AI labors in a basket of correlations decoded in marketable algorithms with emoji-nal awareness. AI, on the other ✋, is a gigawatt alternative 🙄 consuming non-renewable, green resources.
Teenage girls are responsible for inspiring hundreds of pop songs:
Well she was just seventeen, YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.
Sweet little sixteen
You're sixteen, you're beautiful, and you're mine.
Edge of seventeen
Sixteen candles
etc., etc.
Analog Intelligence
Xs and Os. 😆 🤣 💘 😻 💜 💛 💚 🧡 💘 LOL
But as for me in ASCII I believe. :)>
🇺🇦👶🩸
☪️ ✈️ 🏙️
It seems to me emojis are a good way to acknowledge receipt of asynchronous communication without the other party feeling obligated to respond.
White supremacist 🐳. Thar she (no pun intended) 🤧.
🍆 💦👗
👎☠
I was wondering how long it would take to devolve into an all emoji exchange.
💪😎🤙
🍊🇮🇷
When I was in junior high school and a sweet girl next door type would write a note in your yearbook, She would always dot The i's with a little heart.
When I was in junior high the sweet girl next door gave me a hand job ✊
Evolution, 👶.
We need a sphinx emoji
“I'm not a grandmother. I have no grandchildren.”
I’m 80 and my oldest grandchild is 4. Perhaps …
This summer I spent a week at the beach with him and his twin 2 year old siisters, and their parents. I’ve had a long, happy life married for 50+ years to a wonderful wife. I had a career that I enjoyed very and received many awards, including recognition from my corporation and from the ACM (the professional computer science organization).
But “Grandpop read me book?” Is one of the most amazing things ever.
I was talking with my sister who lives in a small town near the Illinois-Indiana border (I live in Virginia) when her town’s tornado siren went off. I sent her a crossed fingers emoji. 🤞🏼 Does that count?
🍆
Eggplant. It's what's for supper
What is this "emoji" thing? Is that one of those "apps?
I am kidding. A "Thumbs up" emoji is often the best way to end a text exchange. It says "Got it and we're good."
🤣
I've never been unable to figure out an emoji, and know people use them as humorous shorthand 99% of the time.
There are a couple of commenters here who love to use acronyms, the more arcane and obtuse the better. I find it rude.
Okay Ann that was hilarious - I’m 71 and AGREE AGREE AGREE
"We're trying to encourage our grandson, who is almost 2, to speak more. Apparently it's considered normal for boys to develop their speech later than girls, on average. When he does speak, he knows the words and forms sentences, so we know he's paying attention. He just doesn't feel like talking."
My parents were worried about me because I didn't talk as a young child. There was a complication at birth and I was deprived of oxygen for a while, and they worried this was a consequence.
The story goes my father came home one day while I was playing with blocks and asked me what I was doing. I replied, "I'm constructing bridges of various sizes." They stopped worrying. To this day I don't talk much, but it's not because I can't.
As for emojis; meh.
"A "Thumbs up" emoji is often the best way to end a text exchange. It says "Got it and we're good.""
I use that one. It's actually useful.
I have 3 daughters and a granddaughter. Our family group text is filled with emojis. I've had to become proficient.
The purpose of much emoji use, like slang, is exclusion. Defining in-groups and out-groups.
They are meta-communication tools.
Redefinition, like "racism", is another such.
;-)
“It's WMCA.”
Actually, it’s YWCA, and I’d rather no hear you sing.
I have frequent conversations via text messaging with an older friend of mine who now is a ten hour drive from where I live. He is very well read and is an excellent writer. Our conversations often focus on the use of language.
He occasionally comments on my sparing use of a thumbs-up emoji or a rolling-on-the-floor-laughing emoji, along with the fact that he has never used an emoji in his life.
I suggested that he investigate emoji's etymology. It makes sense that emoji derives from the Japanese words for "picture" and "character." Since my friend enjoys Japanese poetry forms, I remarked that emoji are examples of modern pictograms crossing over into the English language, allowing some small degree of mutual intelligibility between English and Kanji-based writing.
"I'm constructing bridges of various sizes" would make a great masthead motto. CC, JSM
But yes, for a lot of kids, the less you talk, the more you listen. The more you listen, the more you learn how to talk. The more you learn how to talk, the better you are at talking.
Kind of like the hard men/good times thing. CC, JSM
Emojis represent a willingness to not continue the interaction.
One thing I do regret about aging is having to constantly pull out reading glasses at awkward times. I feel like Captain Kirk, who has to pull out reading glasses in the middle of the space battle, in The Wrath of Kahn. You can totally see his awkwardness and embarrassment over that.
I used to work for a company who had an affiliate (Worcester Mutual Insurance Company) who claimed to be the originator of the original smiley-face.
https://www.fiftyplusadvocate.com/2024/02/27/260771-the-smiley-face-was-born-in-worcester/#:~:text=Worcester%20artist%20Harvey%20Ball%20created,world%20is%20the%20smiley%20face.
How long before the valley girl "like" is fully done and gone? Teenage girls? Of course. QED.
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