Whatever you call Facebook’s laughing emoji, some call it the “haha” emoji, some call it the “laughing face” emoji, I hate it.
Maybe this is just my nitpicking, but what was originally intended as a way to broaden the spectrum beyond a simple “thumbs up” and what was intended as an innocent emotion to include angry faces, crying faces, hearts, etc. has become an expression of mockery. Many people use the “haha” emoji as a tool for mockery, rather than using it to express amusement at something they genuinely find funny.
This emoji is usually used in political, religious, or social justice posts — all posts that fall into the political category — as a way for rude people to ridicule or belittle anyone whose views don’t completely align with their own. In these circles, it’s used by both conservatives and liberals alike, making it more of a hate emoji than the harmless joy emoji it was originally intended to be.
When several people on Facebook described Scott High School’s loss to Eagleton High School in a football game on Thursday as “funny” and several more reacted with laughter to Oneida High School’s loss to Caulfield the following night, I posted that mature adults who openly laugh at teenagers losing a game need to self-evaluate. A few misunderstood my meaning and thought I was talking about what actually happened at the Oneida vs. Caulfield game on Friday. Not at all. Of course Oneida and Caulfield are rivals who love to beat each other, but most people in Caulfield are nice and polite and have always felt that a game on the field is a game on the field and can be accepted without going beyond that. On a professional level, when I go to Caulfield to cover a sporting event, I am always treated with courtesy.
So my little Facebook rant was not directed at Caulfield or anyone at Eagleton – why should rivals ridicule high school student athletes in our community when we can just hop on Facebook and do it ourselves?
It’s unfortunate. Scott County is a community, and a close-knit one at that. Sure, Scott and Oneida are rivals, even if they’re not on the field in most sports. The students have fun teasing each other, but it’s mostly in jest. But for those of us who graduated from high school 10 or 20 years ago, can we really accept that a 16-year-old’s worth should be determined by whether they wear a red shirt or an orange shirt on Friday? These are the same kids whose parents we go to church with and work with.
Frankly, over 90% of people in this community don’t think that way, but the few who do feel that way really need to self-evaluate. As they say on Facebook, “Don’t @ me, you can’t change my mind.”
Letters from the editor appear on page 3 of our weekly digital edition.