I’m an emoji addict. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. I send them in almost every text and use Google's version on Gchat all day long. And yep, I’ve got Kimoji and I can’t get enough of it. (I mean, who doesn’t want to send the iconic crying Kim Kardashian West back and forth all day?)
But emoji use has always been divisive. Don’t use them in work emails. Don’t use them in breakup texts. Don’t overuse them — the list goes on. Even Refinery29's social media team is split on whether emoji are appropriate or not.
So, I decided to put my habit to the test by going a week without sending a single emoji. I wanted answers to my burning questions: Why do we rely on them so much? Would people think I'd stopped having emotions, or worse, that I was being harsh all the time? Would I still be able to tell jokes?
I set out a few rules before I started:
1. Using emoji in any personal communications would be forbidden.
2. I couldn’t tell anyone I stopped using emoji. I wanted to see if people noticed that I just stopped. However, if they happened to ask, I would explain what I was up to.
3. I could still use them as part of my job. As one of Refinery29's social media editors, I’m writing copy for our posts on Facebook and Twitter day-in, day-out. Using emoji is literally part of what I do.
Let’s just say that this experiment turned out so much harder than I expected.
Day 1:
I literally used an emoji the second I woke up, in a snap. Granted, I was up at 3 a.m. to catch a flight back from Chicago to New York, so I wasn’t exactly thinking straight. Sadly, I deleted the snap, unable to think of a way to reword it without said emoji and moved on.
Then, an hour later, I accidentally sent one in a text to my family. Just two hours in, I’d already used them twice without thinking.
I kept thinking about not using emoji all day. I’m hugely competitive and I was stressed at the thought of continuously losing my challenge by accident.
The rest of the day went by better, but I can’t even tell you how many times I had to delete them after I’d typed one.
That got me thinking ( Sex and the City style): What if I use them so much that the process is just ingrained in my mind? What if it’s like automatically typing Victoria when spelling victory because that’s where my fingers are trained to go? It felt like that, at least.
Illustrated by Paola Delucca.
Day 2:
IT’S UNCONSCIOUS. I SWEAR. I sent multiple emoji throughout the day without realizing. And then, multiple texts right after that all read along the lines of “NOOOO I SENT ONE!” — which broke my second rule of not telling contacts about the experiment.
I wasn’t expecting this to be so hard. (Am I being dramatic yet? I’m being dramatic.)
Illustrated by Paola Delucca.
Day 3:
New day, new me. Today, I was really determined to make it through the day without using any emoji. I even put a sticky note on my laptop to make sure I was constantly thinking about it. It’s crazy to me how hard this has been. I really thought it would be simple. How could I possibly need to have a smiley face, heart, or Champagne bottle in my correspondence?
I made it through the whole day without slipping up (I credit my sticky-note tactic).
If I'm honest, I was most worried that my jokes wouldn't land without an emoji and I would sound harsh when texting people. While I did find myself trading fun responses for "blah" ones, like skipping the banter when a coworker sent me a hilarious email chain — that didn't seem to bother me. What really was bugging me was just how reliant I was on them — to the point where I. Could. Not. Stop.
Illustrated by Paola Delucca.
Day 4:
Still going strong. I used one lone emoji (a heart) in a text to my dad.
I will say, that’s where the struggle lies the most. I really enjoy sending quick texts throughout the day to people I’m not with — generally my family, boyfriend, and closest friends — and the sentiment doesn’t feel the same without an obvious expression.
Apparently, though, it’s only me. Four days in and no one has noticed the absence of emoji.
Illustrated by Paola Delucca.
Days 5 & 6:
The weekend went really well. I think using emoji at work was actually making it harder for me to omit them in my personal life. But going cold turkey for a few days really made it easier.
Maybe I’m not as unconsciously attached to them as I thought?
Disclaimer: After a few glasses of wine, I did send one on Saturday. But that was the wine talking, not me. Right?
Illustrated by Paola Delucca.
Day 7:
TODAY’S THE DAY! I made it through without sending a single emoji. Okay, well, I made it right up until 10 p.m. on my last day without slipping up. Close enough, right?
What finally broke me on this final night was receiving some news from an old friend. I just felt like there was no sincere way I could send a response to her heartbreaking news without a visual representation of my feelings.
Illustrated by Paola Delucca.
Looking Back:
I was most surprised by how much I struggled to express my emotion adequately without using emoji. Maybe I’m just a more visual person. Maybe it's because I grew up in a world where things such as emoji have always been engrained into my digital speech (remember AIM emoticons?). But it's also become habit, something I do without even thinking. I unconsciously added emoji to messages countless times over the last week.
I didn’t need to worry about going emoji-less, however. No one noticed I had stopped. "Why would you ever do that?" a friend asked. (A great question.) After a week of consistent texting, he hadn't even thought that anything was weird or different. He didn't miss my emoji-filled texts.
To me, emoji are essential; they’ve become completely ingrained in my communication patterns. But perhaps to the larger world, emoji are more like other forms of slang — phrases like LOL or SMH — okay to use, but equally okay to leave out. And since no one marveled at my emoji-less conversations, I'll just go back to softening a blow, cracking a joke, or showing some love with my favorite icons. ❤️
Illustrated by Paola Delucca.Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?
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