Thumbs are passive aggressive

Emojis quickly became an accessible and easy way to communicate a response or emphasise an emotion digitally, which saves people time but also personalises a reply. Many of us now can’t or won’t send a message without a couple tagged on the end. They make impersonal conversations feel more intimate, and easier to interpret.

But as with anything in 2022, that isn’t true anymore because nothing is sacred and we just can’t have nice things that make life easier without someone on the internet making it harder again.

Emojis have continuously diversified beyond their neutral, universal Simpsons-esque yellow faces to incorporate different skin tones, hair colours, and genders, making them more inclusive. Great!

But why stop there? Some are taking issue with the emojis themselves, much like the way they take issue with everything in general that surrounds them.

Since it’s impossible to do completely harmless things without someone crying about it online and calling for the entire overhaul of society itself, I suppose it was only a matter of time that the equality of emojis was deemed insufficient and now the entire concept must simply be eradicated along with anything and everything else. 

“I’ve just started work in an office where the Gen X people put a thumbs up after a message. It took me literally 5 years and countless reassurances from colleagues and online forums to realise they’re not mad at me, and finally be able to go home without crying,” one such advocate for the destruction of emojis proclaimed. “It hurt my feelings. I don’t think the thumbs up should be used as an icon or in person anymore. It’s hostile and makes me feel attacked.”

So…here are the new ground rules on what to never send, so people don’t think you’re starting a fight, sending a death threat, are a hardline racist, or apparently worse – old. Because the end of the day, we’re all out here trying to live our best lives and the thumbs up is both angry and confrontational and nobody is about that anymore.

1. Thumbs up – no good jobs for anyone anymore.
2. Red love heart – no love allowed.
3. OK hand – nothing is okay why are you attacking people like that.
4. Tick – everything is wrong. The end.
5. Poo – that’s just not funny.
6. Loudly crying face – even though I talk about how everything makes me cry all the time, any suggestion of you crying is narcissistic gaslighting.
7. Monkey eye cover – animal favouritism.
8. Clapping hands – the sound of claps is traumatically aggressive and reminiscent of a totalitarian regime which is definitely not what this nonsense sounds like.
9. Lipstick kiss mark – sexist.
10. Grimacing face – only old people grimace; young people get angry and shut everything down. Get with it.

While these are considered the top ten no-go emojis, overall, emojis can apparently be entirely interpreted however anybody chooses despite the fact they are self-explanatory emotions, because there are no rules to reason anymore. Their inclusivity is insufficient for catering to the multitude of emotional whims people feel at any given moment. This has nothing to do with the fact they are literally digital forms of expression and should be taken at face value – i.e. sad is, well, sad. No no. There are too many possibilities here. The risk is too high. And the problem is definitely not the hyperparanoid emotional dysregulation of the recipient. No, not that either.

Because everything is an attack now.

Everything.

Everything is terrible.

Even the once harmless, optimistic, reassuring thumb.

This is fine. ????