Miss Ohlala
L8RZ TXT acronyms,
hello emojis ! Miss Ohlala is in a nostalgic mood and takes us back to text speak acronyms that are lost to the sands of time We all know how fast-paced technology is and noone can be blind to the soaring popularity of social media. I grew up in the pager and Nokia-texting years. Having been a huge Facebook fan in the noughties, in this decade I’m a self-confessed Instagram addict. I’m not a Snapchat fan, so I’m holding out for the next trending social media platform to emerge. In a rare nostalgic moment the other day, I recalled some text speak acronyms which once littered my Nokia messaging history, and are now verging on extinct: • L8RZ or CUL8R (See you later) • 2nite (Tonight) • TTYL (Talk to you later) • GTG (Got to go) • BRB (Be right back) • GR8 (Great) • M8 (Mate) The limitation of characters on old handsets led to the rise of acronyms in text messaging. The advent of smartphones means we are no longer restricted to a limited numbers of characters, and we have an evolved autocorrect function. Text speak acronyms no longer save time and they are outdated. BRB and GTG were useful in the days when you logged onto your pc every evening, however there remains little use for such expressions nowadays when we are all online 24/7. TTYL is now obsolete; who needs to call when you have Whatsapp? I’m NGL, I’m relieved that LOL and OMG are still going strong. I’ll know that I’m officially ‘old’ when they become extinct. Thanks to the rise of smartphones and the soaring popularity of social media and instant messaging apps, we appear to be adopting a more pictographic form of communication. Emoticons are becoming increasingly popular. Even a year ago, I wouldn’t have contemplated sending a ‘Winking Eye emoji’ to someone I didn’t know well, but now it appears to be socially acceptable to do so (in the right circumstances). 114 www.ohlala-magazine.com
Whilst a picture may in some cases be worth a thousand words, can a set of pictograms really convey a full range of messages and emotions? Perhaps, although I personally find there to be a distinct lack of stylish emoticons for clothes, shoes, clutch bags and hats. Perhaps the emoji creators could team up with fashion designers such as Roland Mouret, Charlotte Olympia and Stephen Jones to design some trending fashion emojis. Finding the right emoji can often take longer than typing the message you are aiming to convey. So I question whether we use them for convenience or ‘shorthand’, or whether they just appeal to the child within us? I think it is the latter. On that note, who could possibly say they weren’t excited to discover the new unicorn face emoji? We all need unicorns in our life. The question on my mind now is whether my most commonly used emoticons, being the “Face With Tears of Joy”, the “Heart Eyes emoji” and the “See-No-Evil monkey emoticon” will be outdated within a decade? And if so, what will replace them?