Back in my day we had intonation, inflection, insight; back in my day we had conversations. Nowadays, half of my conversations online are spent figuring out the sentiment behind the semantics of with whomever it is I’m having a “conversation.” Miscommunication leads to complication: feelings getting hurt, makeshift yelling (read: kanye caps), cryptic and overzealous emoticons (read: iHieroglyphics), acute bipolar disorder (read: a combination of all said “emotions” within a 3-5 minute span bookended with all lowercase tone sprinkled with passive-aggression). Hyperbole you say? Nay, gander and gaze:
Just a ponderance and point of note to developers, designers, linguistic engineers: next time you’re brainstorming genius ideas, throw around emotive text… something catchy like “Emotifont” (from the makers of “The Caps Lock Button: Your Bullhorn to the Webworld.”) #justsayin
Watch this space: People aren’t apathetic, nor are they monotone (well, no one worth talking to anyway), nor were we geared to interact with said delivery of messages in a conversational tone; with text maintaining primary means of immediate communication, I’m going to need more than a few astrices, exclamation points, parenthesis, and a caps lock button to convey what I’m trying to say. Of course, I could minimize my sarcasm so that intonation and snark don’t bar conversation… nah.