Big Brother and the Emoji

  Big Brother and the Emoji

I got two [2] gripes. Two [2].

First [1], how social media is gradually corraling us hoi polloi into a vacuous language of emojis. As if we don't already communicate in jargon with conventional words.

A social media friend is in the habit of tacking an emoji to my comments. Heck, my own kids, when it even suits them to, give me a thumbs-up; or, if feeling generous, a heart. Pressed on how that says absolutely nothing ... huffs and puffs. Oh, Dad! Not much room for good old fatherly criticism, hey?

I get it with the "Like" thumb; thank you Mark Z. You like it. We Like it. I Like it. Just what you like, and what you think you are liking ... who knows. That heart. Nice. But, is the Heart emoticon gonna be a substitute for the real thing? It seems to be taking the love out of love. Just a toss-away item. Attenuated jargon. 

My issue is that we may be headed for a world of social interaction where we not only have moved away from empty lip-service words, but are at the dawn of a Brave New World where what passes for relationship and exchange is just a set of emoticons. Empty of any real sharing, and very much left to the personal interpretation of the receiver.

Does an angry face emoticon mean that you are not liking something? Or, is it just that you happen to be angry. A tear, that something saddens you, or you're just sad. How should anyone know from the basic image? Even, the juxtaposition. Not a lot to go on.

That's not all. That Thumb thingy. I'm wondering if some smart alec algorithmer is not as we speak right now burning the midnight oil to harvest all our "likes" and developing an image of each and every one of us. Then, grouping us into types. Like, I like photography, pretty girls, cooking, cars, political dust-ups, jokes. Like that. Could be one day we'll all be gathered together like birds of a feather. For, not just like it is now, advertising purposes, but for political machinations. As in how pols are becoming more and more adept at framing reality with words that ring our chimes. I think it's called confirmation bias. If you don't think you're susceptible to that, then you can almost certainly and for sure be assured that you are.

There's more. Suppose we come to a day when the Thumbs Up symbol is so thoroughly inculcated into our imagination that the mere appearance of it automatically gets us into agreement and acceptance? Imagine watching something or other — advertisement, or politician — and whilst viewing a Thumbs Up flashes for an unperceivable split second across the screen. In our Brave New World Big Brother can really pull the strings. We go along like sheep. Contented with exchanges of vacuous emoticons. Unaware of the meta-information we are providing for our meta-conditioning.

The second [2] ... is how iTech owns everything that can be said about you and me. I think the term is "Data Mining".

Not just our personal information. You might say, hey, there's nothing personally there I need be concerned with. It relates to the first point. Based on our individual histories of purchases, websites visited, Likes tacked on, where we shop ... on and on, we describe ourselves. Again, may be fine for marketers to tailor messages to select audiences. That's already annoying enough. But, all that information can be aggregated, and we get lumped into groups, by type. Like a vast, but more reliable focus group for anyone who wants to control things to have as a reliable resource at their disposal. 

Let's hope Big Brother is benevolent. I don't think the folks trying to pull the strings set out to do that. But, power corrupts. First, it's an app to get people together. Then, it's an app to put us together ... into categories. Which categories then can be manipulated according to their relative fears and desires. 

Now, the question then is this ... who is it that's calling the tune? And, even more to the point ... who is calling their tune. In the Absolute sense, we know the answer to that. But, in the relative world, it's a thing. So, I guess the question is whether even having a concern about all of this is maybe just perpetuating the problem? 

Let's keep one eye on the Lord. [l]