The grand total of zero of you who don’t know me and read my blog may be surprised to learn that I am seldom characterized as generous of spirit. I have a number of hang-ups, pet peeves or what might be charitably called quirks that set me off on snarky rants at the merest provocation.
But in this pantheon of irritants, nothing is quite as persistent in prompting my displeasure as emoticons. To be sure, I scorn all types of internet shorthand. I abhor the use of @, brb, gr8 and other similar abbreviations (Because really, how hard is it to just type the e-a-t? By my count, it’s only two more key stroke and calls for a considerably more ergonomically friendly typing position than reaching for that 8).
I acknowledge, however, that this same foolproof rationalization doesn’t really apply to emoticons. Conveying emotion and tone in online conversations is often tricky, and it is much quicker to insert a little man with his tongue out than to type out “By the way, the tone with which I intended to convey that last sentiment was playful, if slightly mean.” And yet for some reason, I simply cannot stand them. Who knows. Maybe I just really hate faces.
And so, having acknowledged the irrationality of my emoticon disdain, I feel I can stand strongly by my unjustified opinion. And though the lack of emoticons here and elsewhere in my life may invite smiley face champions to bombard me with negative emotions, mostly in the form of colons, parentheses and periods, for those of you who, like me, find emoticons awful, this blog will be a safe space. It will be a space where I spell out my emotions (mostly derivatives of “annoyed”) rather than repurposing punctuation.
And for those of you who count yourself among the ranks of frequent emoticon users, well, all I can say is that I monkey wearing headphones you.
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