“Happy Hump Day😜!” “Almost the weekend…😅” “TGIF!🙌🏽” Some might call this ‘smiling through the pain.’ The term “late capitalism” has recently become a particularly popular phrase used to refer to and criticize our modern economy. I interpret Fidelia Lam’s GIFs as a reaction to the overwhelming emphasis on hyper-productivity that…
Late Capitalist GIF Thoughts plays with the digital banality of the GIF format in an attempt to draw attention to the affective impact of late capitalism. The juxtaposition of text and emoji echo the feelings of anxiety and emptiness experienced in a society obsessed with hyper-productivity. The hypnotic repetition of…
Does 👋🏻 mean something different than 👋🏾? What about ✊🏿 compared to ✊🏻? In 2015, Apple released a new array of emoji skin tones. Instead of only white or Simpson yellow, emojis range 5 colors, from a pale white (👍🏻) to a dark brown (👍🏿). The addition of these emojis rectified…
The newfound popularity of emojis and emoticons can be attributed to the human need for nonverbal communication, representing language progression and evolution. They serve to imbue digital writing with imperative nonverbal cues that would otherwise be lacking. For the first time in history, Oxford English Dictionary (OED) “Word of the…