I bet there’s about ten things this skull emoji means to you.
In our day and age of digital media, emojis have become a part of how we express emotion through text, tweets and posts.
Often times, it’s the best way to relay information that may be difficult doing through text alone.
This is evident in many forms where individuals may find a sense of relief or a way to ease the weight of a message by adding an emoji that would help their message run smoother.
Look at these two text for example:
“You going to the kickback tonight?” vs “You going to the kickback tonight 👀?”
Yikes
In the text with the emoji, the eyes can represent a sense of interest, or urgency as opposed to the one lacking. The one without it(even though the same question) can lack that interest depending on a multitude of factors such as who you’re sending the message to.
This is where context comes into the picture and is given based on the how and when of the emoji being used.
The context can be better understood by looking at German Philosopher Paul Tillich’s research on Signs vs Symbols stating:
- If x is a sign then x points beyond self but does not participate in the reality of that to x which it points.
- If x is a symbol the x points beyond itself and participates in the reality of that to which it points.
With this knowledge, emojis are placed within the category of both symbols and signs. They can offer dialogue without being placed with words, or sometimes they do need context for clarity.
Emoticons are slowly easing it’s way to representing more in our culture of memes, entertainment and more and will become a language within itself soon enough🧠🧠.