Is the thumbs up emoji passive aggressive?

Do you find the thumbs up emoji – this one – passive aggressive? Apparently, Gen Z thinks so. Beyond sending me into a anxiety spiral (I use that emoji a lot, and often with members of Gen Z), this is also a fascinating opportunity to consider what language is.

Because emojis are a language. Wait – do we say “emojis are?” What’s the plural of emoji? And didn’t they use to be called “emoticons” in the days of Messenger and Geocities? Or is that just something I’ve dreamed up and misremembered? (Sort of like a linguistic version of the Mandela effect.)

Point 1: Languages are both idiosyncratic and social

Idiosyncratic = peculiar/unique to the individual

And that’s the thing which never fails to amaze me about how language—all languages, any language—works: it’s both the most deeply personal thing, and at the same time something we are born into, a massive and complex system which is shared by whole vast networks of multiple individuals over time and space. Surely there’s something sacred about this aspect of language? (Think about, e.g. the act of communion…)

Each time we open our mouths to communicate, or put pen to paper, or finger to screen, we’re choosing from a set of choices made available to us because countless others both like and unlike us have somehow agreed that this set of squiggles makes up a word which means this or that. And yet, at the same time, we’re the ones choosing from the myriads of words available to us. We use our words in our own inimitable ways. One person may say, “Gah I’m hungry.” Another person may say, “My stomach is starting to riot.” And we’d understand what they meant.

In fact, we can even go beyond the idea of spoken or written language—even the way we sit, stand, walk; the way we chose our “Antisocial Social Club” hoodie, or our business blazer, or our dress; the way we put on massive headphones in order to say “please please leave me alone”—all these are ways of communicating, just as the word “cat” communicates a particular idea or a picture of an ice cream cone communicates, hopefully, the existence close by of a sweet treat. The hoodie you choose has a meaning in a larger context, just as the headphones have a meaning. Of course, people could very well choose to ignore or “misunderstand” your intended meaning (I can report that the headphones thing doesn’t work), but again, that’s the beauty: idiosyncrasy in conformity.

Point 2: Language is arbitrary

But that’s the other thing: the hoodie or the emoji can mean many, many different things, depending on the context. In the context of a cold day, the hoodie could mean common sense. But if you’re heading for PE in the hot sun, and you refuse to take off your hoodie, then clearly something else is going on here, no? Or, imagine the headphones once more. They could mean, “please please leave me alone,” or they could mean, “I am Absolutely Serious about my music!”

The Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure pointed out that all languages—any language, including the language of images, clothes, emojis, etc.—consist of signs. What’s a sign? It’s a link, a connection, that the brain makes (because it is taught to do so). Huh? What does that mean, in the real world? Well, anything can be a sign. The thumbs up emoji is a sign. If you make an actual thumbs up that’s a sign. So, never mind the “official” definition, let’s think of a “sign” as a unit of language. Any unit. A word is a sign. An emoji, any emoji, is a sign. In the language of clothes, the hoodie is a sign. The business blazer is a sign. The hot pink crocodile-skin dress is a sign.

Ok, so how do signs work? According to Saussure, all signs can be further split into a signifier, and a signified.

Eh?

For example: think of the thumbs up emoji. The emoji itself is the signifier, i.e. the picture or thing which lets the brain think of a meaning. And whatever you associate with the thumbs up emoji—be it passive aggression, or just an actual literal “ok”—that’s the meaning, or what is being signified. So…

Sign = signifier + signified

Signifier = the thing (word, picture, whatever) which makes the brain think of a meaning

Signified = the meaning(s)

BUT this is why language is arbitrary, can you see? Because, like the article was saying, to one group the signifier could mean one thing, but to Gen Z the signifier could mean something totally different. The hoodie means one thing sometimes, and means a different thing at other times.

And, it gets even more arbitrary than that! Because if you really think about it – all languages are made up of sounds and pictures and random squiggles which we learn are alphabet. Say the word “cat” to yourself: isn’t it odd that a [k] sound and an [ae] sound and a [t] sound when put together, makes you think of a four-legged (usually) creature which makes meowing and purring noises? Why these [k][ae][t] sounds?

And anyway, that’s not how other cultures refer to the animal which purrs and sits in boxes. Mandarin speakers say [m][ow]. French speakers say [sh][a][‘]. In Bahasa Melayu it’s “Kucing.” In Japanese it’s 猫　or ねこ。

There is no inherent reason why these sounds and these shapes on the page connect with the idea of four-legged (usually) mammals which meow, purr, and sit in boxes.

Point 3: Languages are living

Which brings us to the last thing which is fascinating about this whole thumbs up emoji debate. I think intergenerational differences in language are the best reminder that languages are alive, and keep changing. Every generation finds their own ways to communicate amongst one another; every generation encounters issues and ideas specific to them and therefore must find ways to talk about these, and so will end up “growing” the language.

So, for anyone who has to study Victorian literature, or Shakespeare’s plays, and are sitting there wondering, did people really talk like that? Yes, they did. And centuries later, some kid will be sitting there wondering about us, did they really use emojis like that? Yes, we did.

It is this historical aspect which makes the English language so frustrating to learn today, I suppose. Because English is like a house which so many people have lived in for so long, and every generation and individual have renovated the house to such varying extents, that the house is now a complicated monster of a maze.

There’s a wonderful page by Al Lowe where he points out all the ways English makes no sense and cheerfully breaks its own rules. I really recommend having a read—and a laugh.

Because really, if we think about it now, isn’t it wonderful and rather precious that despite the arbitrariness of language, despite the ways in which people can disagree about what things mean, despite the fact that a word can mean one thing now and a different thing maybe five years down the road—we are all still managing to communicate and connect with one another?

It’s as though something within us, some intangible spark of the mind or heart, can reach across the physical divide of the self and communicate itself to another being. It makes me think of neurons firing. There are actually minute gaps between the ends of neurons, yet the body finds chemical means to keep the electrical impulses flowing from one neuron anyway. Forget Harry Potter—this is real-world magic!

And this is why I really, really love the subject I work with. Because we are all neurons in a giant cosmic brain: yes, there are gaps between us, and sometimes we realise that we are, in many ways, incontrovertibly alone—but we keep the electricity and the connections going, somehow, between us all the same.

Image:

Photo by Denis Cherkashin on Unsplash