Back in 2016, Apple changed their version of ‘pistol’ to be a water pistol, rather than a revolver. Apple has their emoji font, Google has theirs, and they generally line up, but in some cases, the differences are really important. “Say someone with an iPhone is texting someone with a Google Pixel. Notes Bramhill, this also introduces new kinds of confusion, as was the case of Barlow v. Axtell’s book Gestures: The Do’s and Taboos of Body Language Around the World, Russia, Australia, Iran, Greece, and Sardinia interpret the thumbs up symbol to mean “up yours.”Įmojis aren’t just a shorthand they afford us the ability to convey tone, emotion, even playfulness while also providing a clarity and reassurance to text that might otherwise be read as ambiguous. “If Gay thought that Barlow was mad at her when she got the text, opening the message assuming it would be passive-aggressive, I totally understand how Gay might feel offended by ‘□□.’ In the same way someone can sarcastically say ‘great job’ when you’ve just spilled red wine on a white couch, emoji can be used insincerely-and that’s really hard to be sure about.” Bramhill also recognizes the ways in which gestures can have different meanings across cultures. Bramhill, who has never seen a single episode of any Real Housewives (couldn’t be me □), has never heard of the single or double thumbs up being used as a fuck you, but he doesn’t dismiss the interpretation. Mark Bramhill, a podcast producer and host of Welcome to Macintosh, has devoted multiple episodes to uncovering where emojis come from, how they are designed, and how they come to have meaning. I also call up an emoji expert to weigh in. * Very Wendy Willams voice* she’s got a point. I think we should be talking about the characters of the emoji alphabet, what they really mean, and how they are used as weapons against us.” It’s become a language, and with every language, there’s double entendres, there’s nuances. “Where is the fun in that? I want to have a rainbow of communicative nuances and subtitles with my emojis. When I point to the existence of the middle finger emoji, she breezily shrugs it off. Okay, but what about the double emoji thumbs up? Is there a universality of understanding among ex-Mormons, Salt Lakers, and Real Housewives that my brain is not privy to? “In my heart and mind, and amongst my friends, there was a universal text code that if you sent two thumbs up, it was F and U, but a nonaggressive way of doing it versus an exclamation point on a message,” explains Gay. It was nebulous enough and passive-aggressive, and she was perceptive enough to pick up on that.” I think we should be talking about the characters of the emoji alphabet, what they really mean, and how they are used as weapons against us. “I meant for it to read as, ‘Message received and I’m done with this conversation’ … which, in hindsight, really did mean an eff you. “Listen, when I sent the thumbs up, I was not meaning it to be aggressive-aggressive,” she says. (I might have texted had I not feared the conversation devolving into uninterpretable emoji speak.) Have I been telling my friends, loved ones, even my therapist to go fuck themselves for years? Or am I in the clear, having not added the second thumbs up? Is there any basis to this whatsoever?Īt this point, feeling insane and in search of clarity, I decide to call up Heather Gay. Am I the crazy one? Here I thought the middle finger emoji was the clearest way to tell a person to go fuck themselves. Fuck you, ”- a reference to a text exchange between the two that ended with Gay sending a pair of thumbs up emojis, which, according to an insulted Barlow, is “universal text code” for fuck you.īut wait. And until you figure out what it is that I trigger in you, we can’t have a good solid conversation and move forward. Lisa Barlow (who considers herself “Mormon 2.0”) says to Heather Gay (a self-proclaimed “good Mormon gone bad”), “I have never done anything mean to you. Let’s set the scene: The ladies of Salt Lake City, the 10th American Housewives franchise, are seated at a dinner. And it’s all because of this: □, the thumbs-up emoji, that this debate's lived rent free in our minds for weeks. But it’s the latest fracas that has permeated the Housewives ether and ignited a larger, albeit no less tacky, cultural conversation. Cast members (and the show’s editors) have turned the ability to make the most mundane fights into extraordinary, multi-episode-long events, all for loyal viewers to devour week after week. Consider Luann de Lesseps and Dorinda Medley’s fight over the designer Jovani Teresa Giudice’s feud with her sister-in-law, Melissa Gorga, about sprinkle cookies the Sonja Morgan Tipsy Girl versus Bethenny Frankel Skinnygirl battle! Epic. If there’s one thing Bravo’s Real Housewives franchise is known for, it’s the ability to platform lowbrow discourse.
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