In addition to sunlight, air, food and water, what else do you need to survive in modern society?

The answer is most likely: mobile phone, charger and emoticon pack.

On November 18, according to WeChat official news, WeChat launched 6 new emoticons, which immediately sparked heated discussions and were even dubbed the "Soul Emoticon Pack" and "Fifth Brother" by many netizens. Same style".

6 new emoticons added to WeChat.

The "Let me see" expression is very similar to the expression of the character "Fifth Brother" in "Huan Zhu Ge Ge", and has become the object of ridicule by many netizens.

On the Weibo hot-search topic "#Don't just send text when chatting#", thousands of netizens shared the embarrassing scenes caused by using only text when chatting. The expressionless text seems alienating on the screen, and the conversation ends in no more than three turns.

However, some netizens raised a small but powerful question: using the wrong emoticons when chatting is more terrifying than not using any emoticons. Every migrant worker must have experienced the moment when he received a meaningful smile from his leader and his hair stood on end with sweat on his spine, and then he came up with thousands of assumptions about the leader’s true intentions.

This mysterious smile is so elusive to you.

Therefore, correctly understanding and using emoticons has become an indispensable skill for men, women, and children. At the 2020 Zhengzhou High School Key Teacher Training Conference circulated on the Internet, how to chat with students has officially become a training matter, and the specific content includes: do not use expressions such as smiles and goodbyes, and replace them with bared teeth, cheerfulness and silly laughter; express happiness At this time, the number of "ha" must be greater than 5...

Although these "hidden social rules" are useful, the Internet that keeps pace with the times is always "the waves behind push the waves ahead". It is better to teach people how to fish. Teach a man how to fish, so we decided to carefully explore the deep logic behind the emoticon package, find academic support for it, and adapt to changes in the face of change.

Written by Xiao Shuyan

01 The “gap” between generations

Why can parents always misunderstand the expressions you send?

On Douban, there is a hot topic called "Misunderstandings caused by sending emoticons to parents." The reason is that some friends sent the "I was so scared that I dropped my melon seeds" emoticon to their parents, but they were asked bluntly, "Are you eating melon seeds?"

More than 700 articles on this topic The content has been viewed 20 million times, which shows that there are many netizens who have encountered misunderstandings. Someone specially sent a cute animal emoticon to his grandma to express his love, but he was criticized seriously: "I treat your grandma as a dog. It is inappropriate to compare animal photos to my predecessors." This was followed by a shocking comment. A creepy mysterious smile.

Some people also casually added a "confused" emoticon when chatting with their grandfather. Later, they learned that their grandparents had not slept well all night after seeing this emoticon, and imagined their granddaughter to be standing alone in the picture. The puppy in the ice and snow is heartbroken.

A more common misunderstanding may be to mistake the smoking "poop" for a cake, to mistake a malicious smile for kindness, or simply to mistake the characters in the earthy emoji for one's own daughter. . Why do parents always misunderstand the expressions you send?

If you carefully summarize the emoticons that cause misunderstandings, you will find that there are two main reasons: first, they believe too much in the original meaning of the emoticons, a smile is a smile, and a kitten is a kitten; second, their sense of substitution is too Strong, establishing a strong connection between himself and the emoji.

But can we really blame our parents? In fact, it is the younger generation that has gradually given it more meaning in the process of long-term use of emoticons. In communication studies, there is a set of "encoding-decoding" theory. Writing and painting, for example, are both encoding processes. Writers and painters encode and transform their ideas and opinions into works in some way. In the process of reading and viewing, readers decode the works in their own way.

But the methods of decoding and encoding are not necessarily the same, which is why there are a thousand Hamlets in the hearts of a thousand readers. However, with the spread of the Internet, the younger generation has gradually unified a set of decoding methods through communication, and has continued to develop and extend this method.

For example, when the "smile" emoticon was first created, what the artist was trying to express might just be a simple "smile". But in later use, someone realized that this expression reminded people of the Mona Lisa's smile, or a fake smile that was not smiling, and then added this derivative meaning to the decoding of the "smile" expression. , and shared it with more netizens, the new meaning became a convention.

Later, more emoticons were created using corresponding encoding methods based on the complex decoding methods of netizens. For example, there are various pitiful animal emoticons, or ferocious-looking runaway cartoons. Users do not really regard themselves as animals, or their expressions are distorted, but they are just used to express a "you know" emotion.

But obviously, the parents who have just entered the Internet world through smartphones have not learned this decoding method, so they can only understand it in the most direct and logical way. Misunderstandings arise from this.

Douglas Adams, a British science fiction writer, once proposed a "Three Laws of Technology": "Any technology that existed when I was born is commonplace and part of the natural order of the world; any technology that was available to me when I was born Technologies born between the ages of 15 and 35 will be revolutionary products that change the world; any technology born after I am 35 years old will be heresy that violates the natural order."

The same is true for the way emoticons are decoded. What seems to us to be commonplace understandings is already "heresy that violates the order of nature" in the eyes of our parents. Fortunately, some emoticons have still withstood the test of time. , retaining its original meaning and thus never causing misunderstanding, such as "rose", "showing teeth", "shaking hands" and "holding fists". Although they are therefore regarded as "elderly emoticons", using them frequently in communicating with elders and leaders is definitely the safest and most secure way.

02 Expand the word "ha"

How many times do you have to pronounce the word "ha" to prove that you are really smiling?

I don’t know since when, "Hahaha" has become a modal word without any emotion. "Haha" means doubt and rhetorical question; "Hahaha" means perfunctory and boring (even with a "haha"-like ridicule); "Hahahaha" is polite and polite; "Hahahaha" is a bit interesting... …Therefore, it was proposed at the “2020 Zhengzhou High School Key Teachers Training Conference” mentioned above that the number of “ha” must be greater than 5.

Netizens who are proficient in economics named this phenomenon "haha" inflation. Just like the RMB in our hands, "hahaha" is becoming less and less valuable.

This is actually a common phenomenon of "word meaning weakening" in linguistics. For example, "girl" used to be enough to mean "a girl with a beautiful image", but now "beauty" is just a polite term for any woman. "Fairy" used to be an aloof and unreachable fairyland figure. Now, calling you "little fairy" is just to show kindness. To describe a woman's true beauty, one might have to add a string of words such as "fairy-looking", "overwhelming", "beautiful", "beautiful", "beautiful", "beautiful", etc. It's no wonder that fans have to use their lifelong skills to describe their idol's "face": they want to slide on the bridge of their brother's straight nose, they want to swing on their brother's curled eyelashes...

"Through In the same way, it probably stems from an increase in the average level of politeness. In social networks, you cannot see any expressions or hear any tone. In order to avoid blunt expressions in words and to show cordiality and friendliness, people will habitually add some tone words, such as "Yeah" and "Ne" , "Haha" to soften the tone. But when "haha" becomes a common modal particle, if you want to express something funny, you have to use "hahaha". After everyone understands this rule, when you see "Haha" again, you will know that it is not really funny, but just a courtesy.

When the other party knows that you are only expressing politeness, it will be impolite to use "haha" at this time, so you have to add another "ha" and use "hahaha". But when "hahaha" becomes a common modal particle, if you want to express something funny, you have to use "hahahaha"... and so on, and the "tongha expansion" continues.

In addition to "Tongha Expansion", other emoticons are also depreciating or even changing their flavor. If you don’t believe me, take a closer look at how people use “happy” expressions these days. Does it look more and more like the “smile” of the past? Three words in a row means - I am angry, but I still try to be polite and smile.

03 “Political Correctness”

How do you choose your skin color when posting an emoji?

Users using the Apple iOS system may need to think twice before sending emoji (visual emotional symbols) portrait expressions that come with the system: Which color number does my skin belong to?

In the 2015 IOS8.3 update, Apple added 300 new emoticons at once and added 6 skin colors to the original portraits.

Even Santa Claus can have 6 versions.

For some netizens, this update seems to be superfluous and unnecessary: ??does anyone really care whether the color of the emoticon matches their true self?

The answer is: It really does.

Before this update, there were only two skin colors, brown and white, in the internationally accepted emoji system. This was protested by other skin color groups. Some civil organizations launched a campaign called "Diversify my Emoji". My Emojis Are More Diverse) petition called for the addition of emoji options for different skin colors, and even sued Unicode, the international organization responsible for emoji development, for "racial discrimination" and won the case. Therefore, Unicode will add new emoji every year according to user needs.

Why is emoji that matches your skin color so important to different ethnic groups? Maybe because their skin color and needs have been ignored in the real world for too long. Take ballet, a classic art with a long history, as an example. Dancers of all ethnic groups around the world are learning ballet. However, until 2017, all ballet shoes in the world were designed to be pink or champagne, which is suitable for white skin tones. Nude”. "Nude color" can integrate the feet and calves, enhance the lines of the dancer's legs, and create the beauty of dancing barefoot. But this "nude color" does not match the skin color of yellow and black people. In order to be more visually harmonious, dancers can only use dark liquid foundation or paint to paint their dance shoes to their own skin color.

After creating her own beauty brand, the famous African-American singer Rihanna launched as many as 40 shades of foundation. This also shows that people of color are interested in "nude colors" that match their skin color. desire. This desire extends from food and clothing in real life to the Internet. Adding more emojis with skin colors meets their needs and recognizes their skin colors.

If "skin color" is still too far away from you, why not take another look at the "food" fight in the meme package.

In the 2015 update of the emoticon package, in order to take care of the different cuisines of different countries, sushi, French fries, and curry were added. But this move caused dissatisfaction with other cuisines that were not included in the list. For example, Taco Bell, a chain of Mexican-style fast food restaurants in the United States, asked why there is no Mexican-style taco emoji, and launched a collection on the petition website, collecting nearly 30,000 signatures.

China’s traditional delicacy mooncakes were added to the system emoticons in 2018.

But they look like typical Cantonese-style mooncakes, so why don’t Soviet-style mooncakes, Beijing-style mooncakes, and Yunnan-style mooncakes deserve names?

In addition to moon cakes and dumplings, the emoticons also do not include rice dumplings and steamed buns, which are both classic Chinese delicacies. Are they not standing high enough?

04 Cultural KOL

Why are there “menstruation” and “guide dogs” in the emoticons?

After experiencing the battles over skin color and food in emojis, it is not difficult to find that emojis exist not only to facilitate and promote communication, but also to express feelings about a culture and a thing. Recognition and respect. Small emoticons play the role of cultural KOL (opinion leaders).

The emoji update in 2019 added a drop of blood emoticon to represent "menstruation".

The picture on the left shows the "menstruation" emoticon, and the picture on the right shows the design of "menstrual pants" that was ultimately not adopted.

Since 2017, Plan International UK, a global women's rights charity, has begun submitting applications, hoping to add an emoticon representing menstruation to Unicode to contribute to the elimination of "menstrual shame" . The application received support from more than 50,000 people online. According to the agency's survey, nearly half of women believe having an emoji that represents menstruation would make it easier for them to discuss menstruation. Although the original, more representative "menstrual pants" design did not pass, the current design is already a breakthrough.

Announcement from global women’s rights charity Plan International UK following the launch of the menstrual emoji.

On the other hand, the 2019 version of emoji also includes expressions of people with disabilities of different genders. Although the types of physical disabilities covered are limited, it is at least a positive start. It is also worth noting that two different types of service coupons have been added in the update. The golden Labrador is a guide dog, while the black dog wearing a red vest can help patients with hidden diseases such as epilepsy issue early warnings. of service dogs.

Perhaps these emoji expressions are rarely used in actual communication, but their existence itself is a small warmth.

At present, emoji is a big family open to the outside world. Anyone can log in to Unicode's official website and apply to nominate new emoticons. However, whether the emoji can be shortlisted in the end still needs to be reviewed and voted by the members of the association. The judging criteria include a series of factors such as suitability, demand, network popularity, novelty, etc., as well as whether the emoji itself is designed to be complete and easy to identify. Related to being less likely to be repeated.

If you are unhappy that there are no crayfish or expressions for visually impaired people in the emoji, you can open the website and submit your application and reasons.

As more communication between people moves from offline to online, emoticons have gradually become a new language, which can not only make up for the emotional loss caused by written expressions, but also bridge different Language barriers are universal. Some people joke that the popularity of emoticons is an "atavistic phenomenon", and human communication has once again retreated from abstract words to concrete graphics. Imagine that new and new humans 200 years from now begin to study today’s emoji culture, just like we carefully study the murals left by prehistoric humans in caves. What will they discover?