MY TEXTING style is pretty salty. I curse a lot, generally in a friendly way, but my phone鈥檚 autocomplete functionality is really cramping my style. No, I didn鈥檛 mean 鈥渄uck鈥�. I wasn鈥檛 typing 鈥渇ick鈥�, 鈥渇ive鈥�, 鈥渄ock鈥� or (when my poor algorithm gets desperate) 鈥淔uchs鈥�. You know what I wanted to say, dear reader, and it鈥檚 one of the most commonly spoken words in English. And yet I have to correct my phone鈥檚 autocorrection to write it.
I鈥檓 not the only one with this problem. Linguist Gretchen McCulloch, whose new book Because Internet is a fascinating exploration of how the internet is changing our language, points out that spellcheckers have quite literally divided nations.
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Although the spellings 鈥渁ccessorize鈥� and 鈥渁ccessorise鈥� are both technically correct in British English, localized spellcheck programs had to settle on one, and so programmers chose the 鈥渋se鈥� ending. Writing this in the US, I鈥檓 getting an angry red line under 鈥渁ccessorise鈥� because my localized spellchecker was programmed to prefer 鈥渋ze鈥�. As a result, says McCulloch, people in the UK are now convinced there is only one proper spelling of any of a number of words that end in 鈥渋se鈥�, even though that鈥檚 not grammatically true.
McCulloch has tracked the evolution of internet language across generations, starting with 鈥淥ld Internet People鈥� who came of age in 1980s forums like Usenet, and ending with 鈥淧ost-Internet People鈥� whose parents had Facebook before they did. Despite everything that has changed, one thing has remained steady: 鈥渓ol鈥�, which started as all-caps LOL (laughing out loud) in 1980s chat forums, and has now taken on so many subtleties that several linguists have subjected it to study.
Ultimately what they found was that young internet users add 鈥渓ol鈥� to sentences where they want to indicate a second layer of meaning. Sometimes it signals sarcasm (studying is fun lol), but at other times it is meant to soften what could seem like an insult (don鈥檛 be a git lol) or for half-serious flirting (u r cute lol). 鈥淟ol鈥� has come to stand in for what McCulloch calls 鈥渘ervous laughter, social laughter, and polite smiles鈥�.
The thicket of meaning that has grown up around 鈥渓ol鈥� is nothing compared with the complexity of emoji. What does the exploding head emoji mean? How about the X-eye face? Is it dead or drunk or both? And let鈥檚 not even start on the eggplant, the upside-down red triangle and clapping hands in between every word in a sentence.
鈥淲hat does the exploding head emoji mean? And let鈥檚 not even start on the upside-down red triangle鈥�
Chinese artist Xu Bing wrote an entire novel in emoji and international symbols called Book from the Ground, which he claimed anyone can understand. Meanwhile, cultural critics worry that limit our ability to express emotion by forcing us to use symbols of consumer capitalism (high-heeled shoes, men in suits, purses, cocktail glasses) to say how we feel. Even if you don鈥檛 buy that, there鈥檚 no denying that emoji paralysis 鈥� that uncertain feeling as you hover between picking the super smiley face and the semi-smiley face 鈥� is real. Emoji sometimes trap us into expressing feelings we aren鈥檛 sure we have.
These issues are heightened on social apps like TikTok, which allows users to shoot 15 seconds of video and set it to pop music. With its parent company claiming a billion users, is one of the world鈥檚 fastest growing social media fads among people under 25. TikTokers communicate entirely by sharing videos, usually with music as a major component.
For people without TikTok, though, there鈥檚 an old-fashioned version of the same thing. Gifs, or short animations on loop, have become the flashier version of emoji everywhere from Slack to instant messaging apps. Some Twitter threads consist entirely of people posting gifs at each other. One firm, Giphy, provides most of the gifs that pop up helpfully when you鈥檙e searching for the perfect vid to express your emotions.
Although many of us use every day, few realize what its ultimate goal is. Eventually it wants to monetize gifs, and the easiest way to do it will be to supply branded ones. So the next time you are texting your friends and you search for an animation of Iron Man raising his eyebrows and expressing your dubious feelings, you may wind up inserting an ad for Disney鈥檚 Marvel Studios into what you thought was just a funny exchange with a pal.
So far, no firm has been able to turn chat into an advertising platform like Facebook, but Giphy is hoping to. Now your emotions won鈥檛 just be turned into little smiling faces, or wacky videos set to music. They will be branded and monetized.
