Misemojication

As an editor who spends his days fixating on minute details of grammar and usage, the thought of communicating with emoji—the visual equivalent of primordial grunts—holds a certain appeal. Often, a picture of a happy face, a heart, or a mug of beer is all that’s required to express one’s deepest feelings and desires. It’s the simple things in life that matter, right?

And yet, it seems even emoji are not that simple. A recent research study¹ has shown that any two people are likely to interpret the same emoji differently. Making matters worse, different digital platforms render emoji quite differently, leading to further miscommunication. If you send Google’s “grinning face with smiling eyes” emoticon to an Apple user, for example, your smug smile may come across as a constipated grimace. In this way, emoji are not so different than words, which humans have been messing up for thousands of years, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯?

Translation

顏文字幫幫忙

身為一位成天盯著文法與用法微小細節的編輯，使用顏文字—犯滴咕原始樣貌的視覺對應物—來溝通的想法，有幾份吸引力。三不五時，一張快樂臉龐的照片、一顆心、一大杯啤酒，都是用來表達一個人最深層的感情與慾望所需要的。舉足輕重的，就是生活中簡單的事物，對吧？

然而，即便是顏文字，看起來也沒有如此簡單。最近一份研究1發現，任何兩個人，對相同的顏文字，可能有截然不同的解釋。屋漏偏逢連夜雨，不同的數位平台，對顏文字的解讀，大異其趣，導致更多誤會。舉例來說，你如果發送 Google 的「露齒雙眼笑」到 Apple 的用戶，你得意的笑，有可能被解讀為一張便秘的鬼臉。用這種方式，顏文字與人類數千年來剪不斷理還亂的言語文字，就沒有太大的不同。但是又奈何¯\_(ツ)_/¯？

[註]
1. http://grouplens.org/
site-content/uploads/Emoji_Interpretation.pdf
2. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ = shrug; “What can you do?”
Image credit: Grouplens at
http://grouplens.org/blog/investigating-the-
potential-for-miscommunication-using-emoji/

 
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