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I think it goes beyond defusing seriousness. Setting a surprised pikachu icon conveys way more meaning than anything I can think of in ascii form. All the Slac

I think it goes beyond defusing seriousness. Setting a surprised pikachu icon conveys way more meaning than anything I can think of in ascii form. All the Slack workspace I’ve seen had specific custom images that helped bring nuances in discussions that went a long way to give an angle to interpret your thoughts.

OJFord 5y ago
Only to people who're in on it, who know what it means. I'm young enough that I 'should' love emoji, Snapchat, etc. and certainly did love Pokemon (Blue & Yellow on Gameboy Colour), but I would have no idea what you meant by a 'surprised pikachu icon'. I think using something that might not be understood (and the recipient being left to guess worse things than you do mean) is worse than nothing at all. And what would you do in a spoken conversation then anyway? 'Hang on, I need to send you an emoji'?
- makeitdouble 5y ago
  I think we already do that with words anyway. If someone replies to you with something along the lines of “my sweet summer child”, “tu quoque” or “hey dawg…” you’ll need to know the context to get what they mean. Verbally your voice tone will bring 1000% more context. IMO the “you need to know it” part is exactly why it works on many levels, as unfriendly it can be to new people from outside. I would say that’s part of speaking idiomatically.
- gen220 5y ago
  Most companies have a culture of weird acronyms and phrases that are totally meaningless outside the context of that culture. It's expected that you won't understand normal discourse for the first couple weeks. I think emoji-usage is a subset of this linguistic phenomenon. At my company, we have thousands of emoji-reacts (including surprised-pikachu), that probably have widely-divergent meanings to their users. Some people have seen them outside of the company before, and use them / seek them out knowingly. Those that don't pick it up pretty quickly. You're right that the meaning is better when you're "in on it", but I think you might be overrating how big of a deal it is to become "in on it", and underrating it's utility as a form of expression, especially emotional expression, in a medium that normally lacks visual expression / body language / intonation.

OJFord 5y ago

Only to people who're in on it, who know what it means. I'm young enough that I 'should' love emoji, Snapchat, etc. and certainly did love Pokemon (Blue & Yellow on Gameboy Colour), but I would have no idea what you meant by a 'surprised pikachu icon'. I think using something that might not be understood (and the recipient being left to guess worse things than you do mean) is worse than nothing at all. And what would you do in a spoken conversation then anyway? 'Hang on, I need to send you an emoji'?

makeitdouble 5y ago
I think we already do that with words anyway. If someone replies to you with something along the lines of “my sweet summer child”, “tu quoque” or “hey dawg…” you’ll need to know the context to get what they mean. Verbally your voice tone will bring 1000% more context. IMO the “you need to know it” part is exactly why it works on many levels, as unfriendly it can be to new people from outside. I would say that’s part of speaking idiomatically.
gen220 5y ago
Most companies have a culture of weird acronyms and phrases that are totally meaningless outside the context of that culture. It's expected that you won't understand normal discourse for the first couple weeks. I think emoji-usage is a subset of this linguistic phenomenon. At my company, we have thousands of emoji-reacts (including surprised-pikachu), that probably have widely-divergent meanings to their users. Some people have seen them outside of the company before, and use them / seek them out knowingly. Those that don't pick it up pretty quickly. You're right that the meaning is better when you're "in on it", but I think you might be overrating how big of a deal it is to become "in on it", and underrating it's utility as a form of expression, especially emotional expression, in a medium that normally lacks visual expression / body language / intonation.