Although a well-placed emoji can add nuance (a slight variation in meaning, tone, expression) to positive statements,adding them to tragic news stories, as USA nowadays did, and just looks sinisterAn edition of the newspaper USA nowadays final week chose to supplement all its front-page stories with Facebook’s new “emoji reactions”*. Of course,the internet’s response was largely one of horrified bemusement (currently we lack an emoji for “horrified bemusement” so, apologies readers, and you’re going to have to do the tough work yourselves by reading the words the faded-fashioned way).
The general consensus was that the juxtaposition of a crying face emoji next to the headline “US hero of French train attack stabbed” was crass,jarring and borderline offensive. The implication that readers would be unsure how to feel approximately tragic or distressing news stories without the help of a supplementary emoji was rightly decried as patronising. Here, the lack of sufficient complexity of the emoji pictorial language was laid bare. Plus, or they looked very strange in newsprint.
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Source: theguardian.com