With her hilarious emoji stories GQ blogger Lauren Bans has proved that receiving bad news is a lot easier when it arrives in the form of a series of cute little emoticons.
Bans created four different emoji stories. The most elaborate expresses the feelings of a hesitant woman who doesn't want to tie the knot with her boyfriend. The message is simple: "No, sorry, I don't think we should get married." The content, however, is extremely elaborate. The emoji message begins with two emoji people and a heart, showing that they're in love. Rings appear then a baby then a whole lot of poop emoticons until finally the woman illustrates her suicidal tendencies using pill emoticons. This is clearly not the happiest of messages but the emoticons definitely brighten up the woman's meaning. The moral of these emoji stories is clearly that if bad news has to be broken, break it through emojis.
Comedic Emoji Stories
GQ Proves That Bad News is Funnier When it's Delivered by Emoticons
Trend Themes
1. Emoji Storytelling - Using emojis to tell stories and convey important messages presents an opportunity for businesses to creatively communicate with customers.
2. Emoticon Language - The increasing use of emoticons in messaging has led to the development of a whole new language, which could inspire innovation in language-based software and technology.
3. Humorous Communication - The popularity of comedic emoji stories highlights the potential for humor to make difficult conversations easier, presenting an opportunity for businesses to adopt more casual communication styles with customers and clients.
Industry Implications
1. Messaging Apps - As messaging continues to dominate communication, messaging apps could seize the opportunity to offer new emoji and emoticon features that enable more creative forms of expression.
2. Marketing and Advertising - The use of emojis and emoticons in marketing campaigns presents an opportunity for businesses to connect with their audiences on a more personal level and to convey brand messaging in a more fun and creative way.
3. Language Technology - The growing use of emoticons and the development of a new language around them could inspire innovation in language technology, including software that recognizes and translates emoticons and language-based algorithms that use this new language for predictive text and other applications.