Do You Emoji?

tears-of-joy-emojiOver the last month, I’ve watched at least half a dozen late-night interviews or Daily Show/Nightly Show segments where the subject of emojis comes up. Some of them were related to the Oxford Dictionary selecting the “Face with Tears of Joy” emoji as their word of the year.

Here’s the thing: I use exactly two emojis, and I use them sparingly. I use the standard smiley-face emoji the most, and occasionally the winky face if I’m flirting with a lady.

But beyond that, I’m emoji-free. I’ve never felt like I was missing out on anything. Am I?

I was particularly interested in a discussion on The Nightly Show about emojis with different skin tones. The racially diverse panel on the show really seemed to like that they could choose an emoji that matched their skin color. I’ve never thought about emojis that way, so it was an interesting discussion to watch.

Do you emoji? If so, do you consider them an important form of communication? What are your top 5 most used emojis?

7 thoughts on “Do You Emoji?”

  1. I use emojis, primarily in text messages. I don’t necessarily see them as a form of communication but as an added perk. Especially if I’m in a sarcastic mood and want to portray that sarcasm to them. My 5 most used are ☕️????. I’m thankful coffee was before the wine emoji.

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  2. Interestingly I only use two – the same two you use – and I prefer the actual text version rather than the animated version. Ie 🙂 and 😉
    I wonder if just using those two shows superior intelligence? 😉 (not flirting by the way…)

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  3. Hmmm – my text versions were converted to the animated versions…
    In researching how to prevent this I learnt that my text versions are not called emoji – they are called “text smileys”.
    And the way to “force” them is to quote them:
    “:-)”. But that just looks weird…

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  4. o_o | D: | 😀 | XD | ^_^

    Sometimes those convert to emoji, and sometimes they don’t, but that’s pretty much my smiley vocabulary.

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  5. Thanks for sharing! Julie, it’s interesting that you use emojis to express sarcasm. Matthew, I’m like you–I prefer the text version.

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  6. I guess it depends. I like to joke/tease people and make people smile as much as possible. I find that without emoji those kind of messages can easily be misinterpreted.
    But you are an actual author AND are always helpful and informative. Maybe it depends more on someone’s style and meaning. Too often text can be taken the wrong way depending on the mood of the sender/recipient.
    Just my two cents 🙂

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  7. I use emojis in order to add some color to black and white text. I feel it makes the format more exciting and I like it more that way :))

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