emoji
Emoji are the shortcut for modern people too lazy for words to entrust their emotions to pixelated icons. While marketed as convenient, they summon the twin monsters of ambiguity and misunderstanding. They oversimplify feelings until the original nuance vanishes into a desert. Everyone sends the same symbols but carries wildly different readings, creating a forest of cryptic code. Behind their lighthearted stamp-like use, they serve as a magical device that conceals silence and loneliness.