This article is a perfect example of how the crit lit genre often analyzes the shit out of a stool sample while ignoring the patient's sawed-off arm. (Usually m

This article is a perfect example of how the crit lit genre often analyzes the shit out of a stool sample while ignoring the patient's sawed-off arm. (Usually missing the real point because an auxiliary one makes for a much cuter reference to some piece of literature authored c. 1800-1990.) A set of images designed by advertising and consumer goods companies are not optimized for expressing the full range of the human experience? I'm shocked! /s The real critique: we've had <img> since the 1990s, and plenty of more than usable chat systems/protocols/markup languages that allow inline images for about that long as well. Why are standardized emojis so popular, and why do people even give a fuck about them when there are obvious workable alternatives? Emojis are not "radical" or "new", as the author puts it. They are a crippled instantiation of an old and obvious idea, an idea that has itself been implemented in better ways thousands of times prior to the rise of emojis.