use case (12. 384)

Keith Houston of Shady Characters, who has just published a new book on the evolution of the face with tears of joy emoji (previously), reports on their repurposing as featured in a new streaming series (which we’ve started) that explores incel and misogynistic online culture through in-group coding. Such coopting is nothing new (see previously here and here) but the collective autobiographical vocabulary is noteworthy if not dispiriting, like using 💯 for the prevalent idea that twenty percent of men attract eighty percent of women and thus the latter are blameworthy for their lack of success. Kidney beans are somehow also a part of the mansophere.  In related news, Houston also highlights how all office chatter is the same and peppered with emoji—no matter the context or gravity—through the lens of the “Houthi PC small group”—which was not so small even before the accidental inclusion of a journalist into the war room—with reactions like 👊🇺🇸🔥 and 🙏 celebrating airstrikes and potentially compromising national security.