SO EMOJINAL

I listened to A Piece of Work, a MoMa podcast with TV star Abbi Jacobson. I don't watch television but apparently she's hot on US Comedy Central. The podcast is amusing, not bad even. They're not aiming for me as audience—I'm essentially eavesdropping—but they lower the threshold in useful ways.

This episode featured curator Paola Antonelli discussing the first set of emojis MoMa acquired for their collection. Twelve-by-twelve pixel images from 1999, designed by Shigetaka Kurita. Beautiful, actually.

But here's what bothers me: what are these images doing to our imagination?

Nietzsche pointed out limitations of Western language. When we say "leaf," we understand what a leaf is—except no two leaves are identical. Language creates categories but eliminates exceptions. Ask kindergarteners to draw a dog and you'll get wildly different results because each child has their own image. Which is fun by the way; I love giving kids assignments like these.

Now we have emojis reaching into our subconscious. I dreamt I was texting someone and saw emojis in the dream itself. Those 1999 versions still seem harmless; your internal image of concepts won't be replaced by 12x12 pixels. But contemporary emoji standardization?

Yes, it enriched digital conversation. But it's also replacing our individual visual vocabularies with corporate-designed pictograms. Pre-fabricated emotional responses, standardized across billions of users. Another system teaching us to fit our thoughts into available options.

We're getting emojinal about emojis. And I'm still dreaming in them.

That can't be good. 😱

Original set of Emoji's by Shigetaka Kurita