Why emojis have become the social "sublanguage" of young people

  A recent survey conducted by the China Youth School Media found that more than 70% of college students would use emoticons to express their emotions, and more than 60% of the interviewees believed that emoticons are convenient for expressing friendliness and are used to alleviating embarrassment through emoticons.

Indeed, in recent years, emoji packs have been flowing in various social scenes, and many young people have been unable to leave emoji packs during virtual social interactions.

  Emoticons originated from the smiley face symbol invented by an American. Over time, various emoticons such as emoji, smiley faces, emojis, graphic narratives, and dynamic pictures have been derived.

Since 2014, the founder of the Emoji search engine has even set July 17th every year as "World Emoji Day".

The real prevalence of emoticons stems from the widespread popularity of social software. Users can not only use the emoticons that come with the software, but also publish their own customized emoticons.

Social software makes people's communication gradually shift from face-to-face communication to online communication, and more and more young people are becoming accustomed to "fighting pictures" in virtual communication.

  Emoticons can be regarded as an important supplement to online text communication.

Compared with face-to-face communication, it is more difficult for people to perceive each other's state or emotions in online text conversations, and sending emoticons can just make up for this shortcoming.

When people want to express negative emotions or want to confuse others, sending appropriate emoticons can not only express their dissatisfaction, but also relieve the other party's embarrassment when receiving information.

Emoticons can also enrich the details of the text in a labor-saving way. For example, the expressions in WeChat emojis that can represent the state of laughter include "smile", "tooth", "cute", "sneer" and "smile", etc. When the user wants to convey happy When feeling, you don’t have to think about which text to use is more accurate, just send an emoticon to solve it.

  In addition, emoticons can serve as a "connector code" for the same circle or intergenerational group.

New media scholar Professor Peng Lan once wrote: Emoji can be used as a label for generational division and group distinction.

The more intimate the conversation or the more like-minded people, the more specific and vivid the emoticons used will be. This also explains why the lower levels use emoticons less to the superiors or the younger generations to the elders.

This is like older people who don’t understand young people dancing while young people don’t understand old people dancing square dancing. Different groups have their own communication codes and cultural codes.

  The emoticons used by young people often have colors of ridicule, irony or joking, while middle-aged and elderly emoticons are known for their quiet, peaceful and positive energy. This has also caused differences in the perception of the same expression among different generations.

For example, middle-aged and elderly people generally think the "smile" emoticon in WeChat is a happy smile, but young people think it is a mocking smile with a sense of sarcasm and high coldness, because it is different from emoticons such as "sad" and "goodbye". The same looked down, and it looked like a smile after emotional depression.

  Emoji, as a network subculture, also represents the young people’s pursuit of a trendy lifestyle.

Emoticons do not exist in isolation, they are often closely related to current social hot spots or Internet buzzwords.

For example, the recently popular "inner scrolls", "laying flat", "emo" and "yyds" have all been made into humorous emojis, which to some extent reflect the current attitudes of young people in life.

Network technology empowers youth groups, and every netizen can participate in the production and sharing of emoticons. This kind of graphic symbols with subcultural attributes dispels serious discourse to a certain extent.

For example, many college students have had the experience of filming the teacher's attitude in lectures and making them into emoticons.

Sending the teacher's emoticon package in the course WeChat group can not only enliven the atmosphere of the virtual community, but also shorten the distance between teachers and students.

  However, when we embrace emoticons, we cannot ignore the power of words.

Because the content of the emoji package and the decoding process are both irrational and uncertain, it is easy to cause misunderstandings and deviations in the communication between the two parties.

Whether it’s a static picture or a video capture, the emoji package can only be regarded as a shallow and fragmented expression after all. It is an auxiliary means of online interpersonal communication, and it is far from replacing the profound thoughts and thoughts in language or text communication. Real feelings.

After all, the real purpose of human-to-human communication is to better realize the spiritual communication between the two parties.

  (The author is an assistant researcher at Wuhan Academy of Social Sciences)

  Huang Jun Source: China Youth Daily