Emojis give me an insight into how it feels to be autistic.
I don’t usually have trouble reading people’s expressions. But
confronted with a bank of emojis I can never find one that reflects the way I’m
feeling.
In fact, I cannot at all fathom the emotions they are supposed to
represent.
I feel like an autistic child asked to identify the expressions of faces
in photos.
I’m mystified.
Thinking this disability marked me out as abnormal, I never mentioned
it. I played safe with a colon, dash and
bracket :- )
Then Ann admitted she didn’t get it either.
Worse – she revealed that emojis have secondary meanings which we poor
middle-aged folks will never ever be able to stay abreast of.
When she was at the cinema with her daughter, during an advert, an emoji
of an aubergine was shown. People
giggled. Ann’s daughter explained that an aubergine refers to an excited man.
Ann was horrified – she had been using it to signify grocery shopping at
Waitrose.
A mutual friend whatsapped a smiley face to her kids. They mocked her mercilessly. Apparently she had sent them “the paedophile
face”.
I have no idea which one “the paedophile face” is, and am now terrified
of using it by accident.
So inevitably it seems that I am doomed forever to hand-craft my smileys from
elements of punctuation ; - )
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