I do think emojis mark someone being emotional. There is no way around it. If we were machines we wouldn’t react to anything at all, and a smily face would mean nothing. Yes the machine could learn what it means, but without having emotions itself, it would still consider them useless to its own purposes and probably would have a hard time understanding how we humans emotionally use them at times to convey more than the emotion represented. Emojis are a social contract in how they are used.
I don’t look at them necessarily as rating - I mean they sure can be and we do use them that way, but they still mark an emotional response primarily, so someone wise will keep on reading to see where it goes, or respond if they think it needs to be pointed out. Seeing a laughing emoji in a serious discussion doesn’t mean that I dismiss the post. I keep on reading. Then if the laughing guy offers no pertinent info but just keeps « laughing » down posts, he’s a subtle troll but a troll nevertheless.
If you ask me, we’re fine with that social contract on TPU. It’s usually self explanatory IN THE CIRCUMSTANCES. I’ve been on forums where additional reactions, in trying to cater to all kind of emotional responses, would strictly become upsetting even for someone just reading the thread but not invested in it. The underlying aggressions were just… contaminating everything else.
I have a particular affection towards this one:
Aaaah sorry didn’t know we couldn’t use that. But you know the guy with the monocle. Best represented here by:
but already that's much more negative.
It does emotionally convey severity and calls for scrutiny but it is not particularly negative nor aggressive.
I do like smh but I find it tends to at once reject the entire post in a block AND call the poster stupid.
is the only one missing. Easy way to ask for more detail or clarification without derailing a thread.
I seem to recall it being here but I'm probrably thinking of somewhere else.
- just really low quality - mIRC running on Windows '98 Edition.
