When we eventually move on from Earth, whether by way of extinction or mass migration to a new home, any visitors to our planetary husk will no doubt examine how we, as a race, communicated.
In the same way we first looked upon ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and wondered what the fuck they were talking about, I can only assume aliens will ask the same question upon discovering that we sent tiny pictures of smiling shit to each other.
When you look at it that way, it’s a pretty weird concept, but emojis have become a massive part of how we communicate in modern times, including that adorable little turd. In fact, its constant appearance on ‘popular emoji’ lists around the world only cements its status as a symbol we can all relate to regardless of language or culture – I am a piece of shit, and I am happy.
Of course, its definition isn’t set in stone, it’s really up to the context of its use, along with the sender’s intentions and the reader’s interpretation. But the thing is, the poop is only ever smiling, so what if you wanted to be a sad piece of excrement? Enter the “Frowning Pile of Poo“.
That’s the proposal being made to emoji creators, Unicode, where some contributors were never thrilled on the pile of crap to begin with, let alone the broadening of its emotions.
Please see the many faces of the sad piece of shit as proposed below.
The team responsible for the proposal reckon it’s needed to fill a gap and could even replace swear words. On October 22, a memo sent to the Unicode Technical Committee included some absolute ire written by typographers Michael Everson and Andrew West. Have a guess about where they stand on the frowning poop proposal.
“Organic waste isn’t cute,” said Everson. “It is a pity that Apple followed Softbank rather than KDDI in its reference glyph, since a coil of dog dirt with stink lines is surely the only proper semantic.”
It’s safe to say he thinks the whole thing is pretty shit (sorry), but he continues. “The idea that our committees would sanction further cute graphic characters based on this should embarrass absolutely everyone who votes yes on such an excrescence.”
“Will we have a Crying Pile of Poo next? Pile of Poo with Tongue Sticking Out? Pile of Poo with Question Marks for Eyes? Pile of Poo with Karaoke Mic?”
Michael, please, you’re killing everyone’s buzz.
“Will we have to encode a neutral Faceless Pile of Poo? As an ordinary user, I don’t want this kind of crap on my phone.”
There’s something oddly comforting in knowing the thought of a cutesy image of a faceless pile of shit gets Michael insanely enraged. He gave you damn kids your smiling shit and that’s ENOUGH.
Mr. West was also critical of giving the poop more emotions, wondering just where the madness would end if such atrocities were allowed.
“I’m concerned that this character will open the floodgates for an open-ended set of Pile of Poo emoji with emotions, such as Crying Pile of Poo, Pile of Poo with Look of Triumph, Pile of Poo Screaming in Fear, etc,” he wrote.
Sweet mother of god, the horror.
“I recommend removing Frowning Pile of Poo pending further study, and public consultation on the need for additional Pile of Poo emoji,” he concluded.
Shit-induced fear-mongering aside, the frowning pile of poop emoji is still being considered by Unicode.
If you want my opinion, just let the people have their emotional gamut of poops and be done with it. Honestly, what’s the worst that could happen?
