Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
In 2015, Oxford Dictionaries awarded the “Word of the Year” to an emoji! In other words, emojis, the exaggerated portrayals of human emotion which grant the user multiple choices to express how they feel over messages took over Mathematics as the universal language.
As much as this surprised me initially, it does make sense when I think about it. Every message basically warranted another message. Looking at a message and not replying was considered as rude when even though in real life, we don’t always reply in words, we might just shake our heads, nod, and smile or raise our eyebrows.
Emojis give us the convenience of doing so without coming across as curt or careless. It’s quick, quirky and complete and it is a lot more fun to experiment with new emojis than think of new replies each time. But, hey, that’s just a lazy girl’s opinion.
As of the most recent statistics, the number of people speaking emoji is a lot more than speakers of English…. really a LOT more. It is easier to learn and easier to use and what’s more, you can’t make a spelling mistake even if you want to.
On a more serious note, emojis very rightly represent the 21st century developed approach with newly added different skin tones attributed to different emojis and multiple scenarios and places depicted through the different tabs. Taking this a step further, when words don’t express, emojis might and that has made all the difference!
