Emojis and their usage

[CharlotteRumpling]

I am not much of an emoji person. I am old and grew up in the days before social media. But because I don't splatter my online communication with smiley faces, people often misinterpret me. If I make a joke, people think I am totally serious. Any one else with the same problem?

I don't usually get the same issue, but it does happen. The trick is to re-read your jokes, rephrase them if necessary to make sure they look like jokes. Plain text is very, very plain so you need to work on your delivery if you're constantly being misread.

Plus - know your audience. People are just bad at reading; some people will interpret your words in bad faith; some people are professionally easily offended; others are busy so skim and miss the cues that it'll be a joke or non-serious or whatever.

Communication needs to consider both the author and the reader. You're only fully in control of one side of that, but consider that you can also choose whether the reader will even see it.

Excellent first reply there.

They drive me nuts. I find it very hard to screen them out if they are littered in a long e.g. update on FB. The problem is that clever clogs phones make it too easy, don't they? Easier to just accept the damn things than decide not 🚫 to. See?!

Hopefully they are going the same way as txtspk soon. I've heard that younger people think they're dated.

Young people seem to go back and forth with voice messages. Why don't they just have a conversation?

I only use smiling face, angry face, laughing face or sad face.
I have a friend who only replies with emojis. It just annoys me and the fact that I text annoys her. She'd rather make a phone call. It takes all sorts.

Yes, people are reading in bad faith. It seems like you can say just about anything with an emoji or a GIF, and people think it's a joke, but sans emojis, they view it as a proposal in the House of Commons.