a theology of emoticons
For those of you who are a little behind the times, Merriam Webster’s Online dictionary defines an emoticon as a group of keyboard characters (that usually elicit an icon such as 
) that typically represents a facial expression or suggests an attitude or emotion and that is used especially in computerized communications (as e-mail). And by the way, kudos for making it to this website… it is called a blog ( <— emoticon).
Now if you are anything like me you have avoided the use of emoticons, considering them to be rather juvenile. Maybe you have even looked down on those who use them , perhaps even growing disgusted with those who tend to over-use them
. For a time, the use of emoticons was reserved for the junior high crowd, but the day has come where emoticons have taken over the internet.
My negative feelings towards emoticons stemmed from how they often operate as a cheap immitation for the careful and intelligent use of language. There is a healthy stretching of ones aptitude, concerning the eloquent use of vernacular gloss, that comes from the attempt to express oneself articulately with only written words. There have been more than a few times, in the midst of email or chat correspondence, that I have succombed to call the addressee of my communiqué on the phone because it was too difficult to convey the message I wanted to transmit in written words alone. I wanted the advantage of dealing with their instant feedback in order to ensure that the message was adequately received. Perhaps I even felt that the inflections of my voice and appropriate ‘grunts’ and ‘huffs’ might also add to the grasping of my report. In essence… I cheated. Instead of forcing myself to stretch my writing abilities, growing in my command of the english language and ability to convey my intentions via the script, I leaned on other crutches.
Now don’t get me wrong. It isn’t bad to communicate with someone on the phone… rather, it is good to hone our ability to use the english language through writing.
Emoticons are often used as “cheats” in a much cheesier and cheaper way than simply calling someone on the phone. Instead of learning to properly aportion the degree/manner/type of frustration I am experiencing in written words, I can scroll to the different “frustration” emoticons and click the one that best suits me –> (I’m really not feeling this way right now, it is just an example).
It certainly communicates something, and most of all it relieves the pressure to formulate original speech… but it is a cop out. One might even make the argument it is a product of postmodernism to use non-descript symbols that carry no definite meaning to communicate, as opposed to using propositional statements that are aimed at imparting an intended message.
Now as you can see, I have had a bit of a paradigm shift concerning the use of emoticons. We do have something to gain from this postmodern era of ours. While the intense post-moderns might want to use emoticons instead of propositional statements, we can use them in addition to our budding language skills. We can use an icon that points to the principle we just expressed, in a creative manner. As a painting can be used to depict a biblical message or theme, highlighting an insight that is already resident in the text, but previously not discovered by the viewer. However, a painting on its own cannot preach the gospel… it can simply be used to bring out truth and power resident in the gospel message, which is itself a declartive propositional message grounded in narrative history.
Now what does all this have to do with theology? God created us to communicate creatively through the use of language. We should stretch our creativity and command of language for His Glory. We need to express the things that God has put inside us as articulately as possible. Where emoticons subvert this objective and are used instead of the articulation of ones thoughts, feelings or desires -they are counter productive. Where they reinforce this objective (the articulate and creative expression of the things God has put in us) through their creative use – they should be used to the glory of God!
Jeff:
I appreciate the interest-this is a very worthy topic for theology.
I feel that there is a definite and continual restructuring of the written word and its
use and usefulness to us in relations, communication, and theology has changed drastically over human history and will continue doing so.
So I’m all about emoticons. In linguistics, there’s a breaking down of ‘proper language’.
Communication is communication. A “meh” and a “bada bing bada boom” translate quite well and so does txt shorthand.
The emoticon is interesting because it was needed. Yes, needed! It wouldn’t have caught on like the bird flu if there weren’t enough co-workers who felt that their sarcastic intraoffice blast about appreciating the person who ate their chicken salad in the break room wasn’t quite clear and wanted another way to convey the message, our =( wouldn’t have stood a chance.
I’ve tried breaking up with people, announcing births, lied about being sick to bosses, etc over email and its hard! It never quite feels right. Right?
Why this is could be the internets favoring quickness. Who’s gonna read Dante or
Bunyan on a website? So its punchy, its clear, its easy…{moderated}
Now, I would say that as to God and the emoticon…Maybe it would be more precise to say that God has created humanity for relationship. (I’ll leave all the modifiers like ‘just’, ‘loving’, etc for another time)
To that end, there’s communication in all its emoticon, braille, morse code, slang, eye winking glory. What is more important perhaps than the specifics is the intention and content…. {moderated}
So that’s all pretty mundane, but here’s where I will differ with you:
You wrote,
“As a painting can be used to depict a biblical message or theme, highlighting an insight that is already resident in the text, but previously not discovered by the viewer. However, a painting on its own cannot preach the gospel… it can simply be used to bring out truth and power resident in the gospel message, which is itself a declartive propositional message grounded in narrative history.”
I take it that you’re not Eastern Orthodox.
The Church’s use of art along the artsy spectrum has always been integral and central to Christianity (and any other religion out there you’d like to insert). Murals, painting, song, dance, performance of rites/rituals, fabric arts…..
Community and communication is a full bodied and sensual project.
All comments that I could have about Biblioatry aside, I’ve been thinking about how
the disproportionate weight given to the written word in theology and religion is really just a reiteration of the elitism and hegemony that some religious folk like to entertain.
Think of it like tech geek programmer/hackers. They know a highly stylized and technical skill that can be pretty well withheld. Of course to maintain control, you’re going to privilege the types of expression and communication that only the few know.
Caligraphy, type setting, literacy…all these things were harder to access to the common folk so the peasants who were dancing, weaving, singing their theologies.
So where literacy has expanded and become free to all, power and control have been loosened and theology has found its proper home in all of human experience and expression: emoticons, Emo bands, Elmo, Ellen Degeneres, etc.
Thanks for the post! Ryan McGivern
{moderated links}
Well Jeff, I’ve got to hand it to you! I never thought I would live to see the day when someone would try to formulate a “theology of emoticons”. I do agree with you that learning to communicate well can be a very God-honoring pursuit. In fact, I’ve been kicking around this whole subject of communication in my mind for several years now. It seems to me that the way in which we use our communication can have incredibly positive-or incredibly negative-potential. What I mean is this-when we use our language well, we can glorify God, build others up in the body of Christ, and communicate to the lost their need for the Savior. When we use our language poorly, however, we do all the opposite-dishonor God, tear down the body, and unnecessarily estrange unbelievers from Jesus. In light of this observation, I believe that our communication is very important.
As for your observations on postmodernism, I am a bit torn. I do believe that postmodernism has quite a bit to offer us. I even believe that modernism might have quite a bit to offer us. The problem I see, however, is this: we cannot allow the gospel of Jesus Christ to become too entangled with any worldly system of thinking: whether pre-modernism, modernism, post-modernism, post-post-modernism, etc. This is the mistake that Brian McLaren and the emergent crowd seem to be making: they correctly observe that the gospel has become too entrenched in modernistic systems of thinking, but they try to remedy this by simply re-entrenching it in post-modernistic systems. If I had to choose, I would probably say that pre-modernistic systems of thinking are the most suited for understanding and communicating the gospel, but since that wouldn’t be a very popular thing to say in today’s culture (we all want to be relevant and progressive, don’t we?), I would settle to simply communicate the gospel in whatever culturally relevant and Biblically faithful ways we can find. Propositional statements are one way of doing this, but we need to be careful lest we become too enamored with propositional truths and miss what the Bible is trying to communicate at times through non-propositional statements. If we do not guard against the modernistic obsession with propositional statements, we run the risk of using a wooden-literal hermeneutic in interpreting the entire Bible. This is my 2 cents, at least.
i think it’s a stretch at best
emoticons, like it or not, are an integral part of the genre of digital communication. gone are the days when people’s written communication consisted of someone sitting down and carefully crafting a letter to someone. now we quickly shoot out emails and chat messages (which are simply typed phone conversations), rather than looking to writing them as a skill which could be honed. this should hardly be passed off as the art of “writing.” rather, chats and emails should remain in the “conversational” genre of communication.
blogging still has the potential to maintain the written form, yet even still, most forego that for a stylistically glorified email. often, grammar, punctuation, and vocabulary are de-emphasized for the sake of fast completion by the writer, and equally fast digestion by the reader (see punctuation and capitlization in this comment). the tools a good writer uses to communicate his message have not been lost simply because of the advent of emails or emoticons… they’re still found in the same places they’ve always been: good books by great authors. just because everyone is “writing” nowdays, doesn’t mean everyone is a “writer.”
Good word. There is yet hope! Of course, Tevor, you know what’s coming.
I agree that there are still places to find good writing (namely books, journals and periodals). However, there is also more bad writing being read and written than ever before because of the sloppy use of these other exploding mediums.
I still think that we, as a culture, could be challenged to be more skillful in the way we communicate, even casually. We should strive to be creative ‘word-smiths’ for the glory of God who communicate very articulately, and it should show everywhere we have an opportunity to be heard.
The casual, sloppy language used in text messaging, emailing and chatting has already begun to infect more formal writing mediums. (here is one of many stories: http://media.www.dailyvidette.com/media/storage/paper420/news/2007/05/02/News/Text-Messaging.Might.Be.Harming.Writing.Abilities-2891017.shtml )
Because people today more commonly write in a medium that they take less seriously (like chatting, text messaging or email), their writing skills are less developed. Perhaps if we took care to be more articulate and creative in these ‘less formal’ mediums (especially email and blogging), our communication/writing skills would be benefited rather than harmed.