It all began in the early 2000’s.  Lording over the plebs with my far superior vocabulary, I began to introduce LOL into my vernacular as a means to satirise, and ultimately mock, those who “genuinely” used it.  A few months down the line however, and all sense of irony was lost. Amongst my day to day language LOL’s kept involuntarily surging forth, like that little bit of puke you choke back down after a shot of Sambuca. It became habit to suffix a half-hearted chortle with a LOL just to reassure those around me that I had indeed found something humorous.  The act of laughing was now not enough.

Hashtags too. No longer do they serve the purpose of tagging relevant words so my tweets and posts are more searchable, they now form part of language – both written and spoken..  If I want to highlight something ironically I will hashtag it – #genius – instead of using the wealth of language that is now rotting in some dusty part of my brain. And then there’s the trend of humorously ginormous hashtags, again used to satirise other people’s poor use of the function – #whendidthisevenbecomefunnykillmenow.  The problem is that by using these devises, even satirically, I only become part of the problem.

And now the problem goes even beyond words.  Enter emojis.  Again, I began using them ironically, until I looked back over some messages to find little but a stream of tiny images; smiley faces, half-hatched chickens, palms trees and a little poo with eyes seemed to have been the key occurrences in my life that week. Nimble fingers have learnt to habitually dart over a colon, closed bracket whenever I say anything relatively jovial or light-hearted, and I keep having to check over my work emails to make sure I’ve not sent any inappropriate emoticons.  I need rehabilitation. 

I knew the problem had reached breaking point when after writing a heart-felt message of condolence to a friend, I spent a good 15 minutes trying to decide which emoji was best suited to the text.

This one was too sexual 😏

This one was too cheeky 😊

This one was too happy 😌

This one was too random 😶

Instead I settled for a simple : )

There are several issues with this – firstly why do I need an emoji at all.  Something ingrained deep within me felt as though the message was somehow not complete without a brightly coloured smiley face to sign it off.  Secondly, why were the mere words not enough? How could a basic cartoon face say more than the 200 or so characters I had carefully selected to express my feelings.

For someone who considers herself a writer (particularly after consuming several alcoholic drinks or whilst smoking a Vogue menthol), the fact that OMG, LOL, totes, amazeballs and fo sho now litter my vocabulary is a downright crime. Somehow this contemporary “language” can say more with much less.  Why tell my friend her bag is cute, that I like the contrast between the delicate beading and the bold use of primary colour, when I can throw a blanket amazeballs her way and she like totes gets what I mean.

It’s a social issue too.  My friends and I have a glorious habit of ripping each other for anything and everything, so if I were to actually use my full vocabulary to aptly describe something, I would get harassed  for being some kind of “dickhead Shakespeare wanna be”.  Or worse, they would simply deploy their go-to phrase “middle-class Louise strikes again”.  Peer pressure, man. 

I’m not sure what the solution is TBH (<— see there I go again), bar going to live with an Amazonian tribe for several years to get it out of my system. They say admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery, so at least I can say I am aware of my monstrous behaviour.  Perhaps I’ll simply have to take sometime out of my hectic modern day life (whatever that means) to write a sonnet or a limerick, or something that actually involves utilising the language I spent 24 years and tens-of-thousands of pounds on an English literature degree to perfect.

There was once a girl called Louise

who always pronounced her ’t’s.

She used to be droll

till she started to LOL,

her vocabulary nought but emoji’s.

💩