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Also, the "crying with laughter" face, in practical use, comes across as absurdly over-eager to express inauthentic laughter. Most people just knee-jerk flood you to hell with those things, at the slightest hint of a joke.

I'm tired of seeing that stupid, stupid cartoon face. I wince when I see it. It pains me. It's like getting stabbed in the gut for offering chewing gum to someone. I don't like to tell jokes anymore.

I want to reply:

  Please stop laughing so hard.
  The joke I made was not that funny.
I notice Facebook users have the worst sense of habitual knee-jerk emoji obligation. I think it's because they are restricted to expressing only five emotions.

  1. Thumbs Up (like, but often mere acknowledgement)
  2. Heart     (love, but often off-topic)
  3. Wow       (horrified, shocked or amazed, but which?)
  4. Cry       (sad, but why?)
  5. Mad       (angry, but at who?)
In most cases, this leaves them resorting to an ambiguous "Wow" for most non-thumbs-up reactions, leaving the reader to question if it's a good wow, or a bad wow.

Because they've accepted ambiguity as fact when communicating with individual icons, they also lack a sense of volume. They've been trained to understand that CAPS LOCK is bad, but it will be years before emoji fatigue sets in. For this reason, I've mostly withdrawn from interacting with many people.




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