Dont we use Gifs like emojis though?
The best argument against banning emojis is old people yelling at clouds. It really doesn't matter that this is not how people used to communicate in the good ol' days when they were throwing carrier pigeons out of their windows.
Remember at the other place when removing :lol: was argued for improving the quality of discussion? Amazing how that worked out, right?
Hollow, evidence-less decisions on banning modern, nigh-universally accepted and progressive forms of communication that better convey nonverbals than words can, which even in their absence got supplemented with other visual forms of communication anyways (remember the crackdown on GIFs at the other place too?) - including GIF versions of emojis anyways. All with the undercurrent of them being destructive to "serious" discussions. Which is a premise so ridiculous and full of itself, it's something I expected from the autocrats at the other place, but not really here that's supposed to correct for the many problems of the previous leadership's authoritarianism.
Perplexes me that people can live in the world today and tolerate GIFs, embedding videos, etc. as a non-destructive form of communication but not emojis, both of which have grown to popularity for pretty clear as day reasons and haven't caused some super salient and worldwide collapse in the quality of discussion in pretty much every other venue. And we wonder why people are jumping ship from forums to Discord and platforms that are less stubborn to change with the times and affordances of technology.
emoji are clip art, not words. it can't be an evolution of language because it's not language. it's silly little pictures intermixed with your words.
here's a hint: if you try to say what emoji is in front of you out loud, it's not like a tone or song or sound effect, it's words. "poop emoji".
i realize you're probably just trying to edgelord this but i seriously hope people don't think emoji are some next-level communication method. it's a scene from Idiocracy.
Who's the edgelord, besides the person who presents their argument as if they are an expert on language, but seemingly restricts the definition of language to words or verbals?
If a linguist saw this they'd have an aneurysm.
