I think I hate myself for saying this: my name is Cee Tee … and I use emojis.

They’re irritating wee things, aren’t they? In the main, they’re totally pointless and only serve to ‘decorate’ a piece of text in the same way three ornamental flying ducks decorated a block of plain, tobacco-smoke-stained, woodchip wallpaper in the 1970s.

I don’t use many different ones, but those I do, are beginning to appear more frequently. I’ll use the blue heart 💙when talking of football club; the full beer glass 🍺for someone’s birthday / celebration, and the drunk 🥴or sick 🤮when I’ve had too much 🍺🍺🍺

The wee general ‘happy’ one 😀is nice to use, I suppose as it lets everyone know all’s good in my world. The one that really irritates me though is the thumbs up 👍. I try very hard not to use this one. It’s so dismissive. It’s like someone may have read the post, but simply can’t be arsed replying. Like: I hear you … yadda, yadda, yadda.

But here come the two I most need counselling for; ‘wink’😉and ‘laugh’ 🤣/😂.

When I’m writing, like proper writing, you know, a magazine article or book or whatever, an amusing comment is most effective without the need for an exclamation mark. I see that as being a cue to tell the reader, ‘Hey – I just made a joke! Get it? This is the point in the text where you laugh out loud!’ (See how I deliberately avoided that dreadful ‘lol’ expression – another of my pet hates.)

The same principle should apply to ‘casual’ writing, I know. But then there’s a difference between writing a magazine article / book and penning something casual for social media / blogs when the author will likely have some form of personal connection with the reader. Without the benefit of voice tone, written word can easily be misconstrued and readers accidentally offended. (#awkward.)

And so, I’ve found myself using 😉🤣more and more often as a sort of disclaimer. It’s shorthand for : ‘That was ‘J’ for joke, there. Please don’t be offended. Ok, it was a poor joke. I get it. Sorry. I won’t use it again.’

I know. It’s sloppy. Unprofessional. But that’s the way of the world right now, I guess. 🤔

I think I’ll just have to go 🥶🦃

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