Emojiality. Or, the Personality and Congeniality of Using Emojis.

We all have personality, as such. But, having a good personality—more of a charisma—is something different. A good personality tends to be the ability to match an attribute of personality to a specific context.

For example, my 10-year old daughter fell playing and gashed her knee. Not just a gash, but also one of those concrete-scrapes-all-the-skin-off types of knee injuries. While everyone in the house was wildly running around for first aid, I walked over, looked at it, and said calmly to my daughter, “Well, your knee-modeling career is over.“ This, of course, was misplaced wit, only eliciting higher pitched screams. (I still think it ranks up there with, “Well, Mrs. Lincoln, other than that, how was the play?” but that’s just me.)

In any case, if you don’t believe me, well, of course I videoed the whole thing with my phone.

Last week, my youngest daughter convinced me to see The Emoji Movie. Without spoilers, the plot of this movie revolves around the point that each emoji has one job to do: not necessarily to be itself, but to look like it is supposed to look. The main emoji character is challenged in this regard. Now imagine the catastrophe for a 14 year old adolescent boy with his first girl-crush who spends three hours choosing the perfect emoji to send to the girl, but the emoji changes in transit. Cruel circumstance.

I did not take any particular philosophical meaning from The Emoji Movie. That came a bit later, as I will briefly explain.

After the movie, I went with my daughter to get something to eat. Lo and behold, I hear a slight scream. I look up from my plate to see blood on my daughter’s mouth and on her hand. Did she slice herself with a knife? Did she? No, she lost her tooth.

Now, being a responsible father, I did what many fathers would do: I took a picture of the tooth with my telephone and group texted it to my wife and other daughters, “just so they could see it….” And, certainly, it goes without saying that I took that meaty tooth picture as a close-close-up with all the blood, meat and gristle still on the tooth. Fathers understand this point. I needed pictorial impact.

Now, there were lots of ways for my wife and other daughters to respond to this gruesome picture, but what my 10 year old daughter immediately texted back to me was sublime:

What is this? What does this mean? I just stared at it. And, two of the same!

Like a dare versus a double-dare, exponentially more effective. I never saw these emojis! Was this some sort of an iPhone trick? Being the only Android phone in my home, I quickly checked my Android telephone emojis list. There it was, the “faceless” emoji! Woe unto me!

My daughter’s faceless emoji response—double faceless emoji to be more precise—speaking to me in condescending ways that I had to imagine for myself!

If my daughters had sent to me that bloody and meaty tooth picture, I would have responded with the obvious clenching teeth face emoji, or my ever-go-to emoji, poop. I was now chagrined by my lack of emoji sophistication, my lack of emoji personality, my lack of emoji congeniality. Yes, I had to admit my lack of emojiality!

I was simply outclassed by my 10 year old. Outclassed, outwitted and completely conversationally dominated—by my 10 year old.

I was simply outclassed by my 10 year old. Outclassed, outwitted and completely conversationally dominated—by my 10 year old.

For the emoji context, my daughter’s response ranks up there with President Kennedy’s Thomas Jefferson Dined Here Alone Quote for that context. I was stunned, without any superior retort.

The lesson for me was this: “One picture is worth one thousand words.” Emojis are here to stay, in one form or another, because they serve an essential purpose. For the context of text messaging, emojis are used as attributes of personality and congeniality that are powerful tools disguised in simple pictures. But I shall not again underestimate the power of the emoji to be used in a clever and witty manner.

As the world changes to new forms of communication, it is incumbent upon us who desire to stay relevant to learn the available tools and how to use them. Wisdom may come before wit, but wit still must be expressed within the applicable context.

Emojis serve a purpose and have their place as a tool of artful expression for the context of certain communications. Either we will master their language, and develop our emojiality, or they will speak to us in ways that we will not begin to understand.

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