Many More Shades of Red….on Yellow
Of all the emoji arsenal at my command, the one which is in short supply or rather short on spectrum is the one reflecting the exact biological expression , to be more precise, the facial expression of amusement which I experience at a particular moment. In my understanding, it is the very basis of emoji - being a picture conveying a thousand ( okay, to pay homage to the social media rooster, a maximum one hundred forty )compressed words instantly.
It’s quite beyond comprehension to decipher why an almost limited bank of emoticons is sufficient to get a feel of an individual’s state of sadness though the paucity of humourticons constantly nags a perfectionist. Only the reports of new ones in pipeline gives the discerning audience some hope. The pertinent question then is, why so? Is it because grief is more a vertically linear entity-fathoming the depths of an individual and humour, a horizontal curvaceous phenomenon-spreading all along the breadth of expanse around it. Ergo, sadness is limited and happiness boundless. That explains the constant need to add to the fun army of yellow blobs.
The humour, by itself , is so precious a tool for human enhancement that it should be given all the wherewithal it needs. In its most rudimentary form (-: the smile :-), serves to brighten up even the plainest of faces. Not only that , onward ho! it triggers the auto-response mode even in the casual onlookers. Then whether it chooses to pursue the path to the eye( twinkle), expands from ear to ear ( grin), stays put in mouth(tongue-in-cheek), forces lip to part slightly or fully (chuckle, chortle) or goes all the way down to abdomen (laughter, guffaw, hee-haw), it only does a lot of good to the giver and to the receivers. ‘Laughter Clubs’ are a testimony to this therapy.
What then is the way forward?
A consciously creative way forward could be going anti-mimetic. Art imitates life, most of the times. Then life can be coaxed to imitate art too by surrounding the fingertips ( or the tapping thumb) with all varied individual and collective expressions of a happy frame of mind.
Lest we forget…” Laugh, and the world laughs with you” syndrome should apply to the joiemoji too!