Emotions / Emoticons

🍑Emotions / Emoticons.🍆 

“What are we left with when emojis encompass how we feel…”

I was working in the fruit department one day in my regular person job, when I saw a crate of peaches sat there, and how as a millennial, myself amongst others see these as something humorous, a double entendre, an innuendo.

It got me thinking about the reality of relationships are formed in the 21st century, I have the perspective as a gay man on how this impacts my community and what I’ve learnt since being active in the dating world…

I wanted to create a statement about the reality of receiving only pictures and meaningless messages, showing what the person on the receiving end is left with. I am so grateful that now I have built up deeper relationships that bring me joy and true connections with people.

Here are some facts for you:

🍑 33% of tweets use the peach emoji as shorthand for butt

🍆  27% of emoji usage has sexual connotations or include suggestive imagery 

🍑 93% of tweets with the coach emoji have nothing to do with actual peaches.

🍆  The aubergine emoji is the 10th most popular emoji used my daters.

(source, metro.co.uk)

I resent bashing such a way of communicating as a lot of people use it, but from my experience, it has been thrown about too much. When I was dating, people would chuck these suggestive emojis about- it felt shallow and not what I wanted when talking to people.  So with this photo, I wanted to bring to attention the in between world we are in; where we are maybe too scared to open up so vulnerably about how we feel, worried of what the response from the other person would be.

Personally, when I was dating, I didn’t face this a lot. It was an occasional occurrence. Guys would have the aubergine emoji as their name and send the same emojis out, it just felt very lowering and weird that such sexual images could just be anywhere and everywhere, without being obviously apparent of their connotation. When I would see such emojis , I remember just not wanting to be a part of it, but when I was first receiving these and first out there in the dating world, I would have thought that was normal, that sexual innuendos was the extent of a meaningful relationship. I am in an incredibly healthy and happy relationship with my partner of nearly two years, we never sent such emojis and we have built such a deep relationship, I only wish that we could open up to one another more and not fear words. 

I hate to think of what impact receiving emojis like these all the time would do to someone else who is a young adult, growing up in a world where receiving emojis like this is normal and sometimes the main way people communicate. Now don’t get me wrong, I LOVE an emoji! I think they’re a great tool to expressing more than words can, so maybe someone could dispute this post and argue how they’re an easy tool for people who are sexually active, then fair play to you: carry on! I am just keen to observe their overall impact in the world and how not everyone connects in the same way.

What do you think of such a tool of communication? Have we lost what it means to have ‘human interaction?’ Or have we unlocked a new world of communicative tools?

(two bonus photos from this shoot.)