You know, I thought I’d just about run out of things to say about emojis. Apparently I was wrong, though, because “Emoji Among Us: The Documentary” just popped onto my radar, and a) it opens a whole new can of emoji-based worms, and b) I can’t stop laughing about it. If you’ve ever wondered what happens when emojis get the David Attenborough treatment… well, now we know. And it is magnificent.
Inspired by Attenborough’s famed nature documentaries and Able Parris’ #emojidaydream project, “Emoji Among Us” takes Dissolve.com’s database of stock footage and assembles its choicest bits into a parody of epic proportions. While I’ve typically viewed emojis as the real life equivalent of the glyphs and pictographs that have more or less replaced actual words in Neal Stephenson’s novel The Diamond Age, “Emoji Among Us” offer an entirely different way of looking at them. They’re not just a replacement for the written word; they’re creatures in and of themselves, living beings with minds of their own searching for a place in society. Ridiculous? Yes. It’s also hilarious.
Because my brain goes off on all sorts of weird tangents whenever it’s presented with new ideas, I can’t help but think that in the light of the revelation that emojis are actual beings, maybe we’ve sort of appropriated their language and assimilated it into our own. Mashable has created a list of famous book titles as they would appear in emoji form; how long will it be before we have whole novels written in emojis? Something tells me it’s hovering on the horizon. Who knows — maybe the next Great American Novel will provide proof positive of the emoji’s triumph over the modern world. Are they friend or foe? Only time will tell, but one thing's for sure: They're here to stay.
Image: Dissolve/Vimeo
