Emojis have always been yet another way to hijack attention on the screen. It is exactly why they've been so successful. I say "hijack" because the capturing of

Emojis have always been yet another way to hijack attention on the screen. It is exactly why they've been so successful. I say "hijack" because the capturing of attention on the internet in 2022 is primarily a function of ad driven platform capitalism, the tactics used by players in this system being dishonest, nefarious, harmful. And while they succeed at this singular purpose they fail at the thing that actually made emoticons beautiful communication tools: their ambiguity. For example see the way the emoji lexicon had to be expanded in order to be racially inclusive. Emoticons never had this problem. A smiley is a smiley, simple, universal and forever. :)