The effort it takes now to actually form a written sentence in response to someone who themselves managed to “craft” a written sentence is extraordinary. Which is why, to loosely borrow from Jennifer Lopez (who, in turn, borrowed from Debra Laws), “All my emojis are all I have.” That is to say, when it comes to “effortless” expression, people don’t even have to “type out” an emoji anymore. All one needs to do is press on the text itself and an “appropriate” response will come up. Communication made as “no muss, no fuss” as everything else in the post-twentieth century world. In the same sense that everything else had, in truth, been made much harder as a direct result of these “tools” designed to make it all “a cinch.”

Thus, Benny had seen his fair share of inappropriate prompts come up as suggested replies to things that hardly warranted a “laughing-crying” emoji. Had even accidentally just “gone with it” a few times, pressed the button he was “suggested” to. In one particularly fatal instance, that suggestion even ended a friendship, when he automatically hit the laughing-crying emoji at a text his friend sent telling him that he had just been laid off and he had no idea what he was going to do now. Hayes never forgave Benny for the maladroit (non-)response, even though he did his best to explain that it could have happened to anyone. Hayes was not of the same belief, telling Benny, “It wouldn’t happen to someone who had carefully read the text instead of just ‘auto-replying.’ What kind of person are you?”

That was a question that haunted him for months after the snafu. Benny really did have to wonder what kind of person he was. As far as he could tell, he was simply the kind of person that everyone else was “in this day and age.” It wasn’t that he was willfully self-involved or oblivious, it’s just that the current state of living tended to transform most everyone into that model. Or make them come across as such. The more Benny thought about it, the more he remembered a number of things Hayes did that could have been seen as “violating” of certain formerly established etiquette. Etiquette that had once been quasi-sacrosanct before the internet took hold completely of everyone’s lives, everyone’s means of communication. And turned them all utterly socially incompetent as a result. Dare one even say “autistic” vis-à-vis understanding and interpreting social cues. But then, when the creator of modern social media himself (*cough cough* Zuckerberg) has autism, what else can be expected? He turned us all autistic. That was Benny’s stance anyway, especially after losing Hayes as a friend. Because, at Benny’s age (forty-something), losing a friend was no “small deal.” In fact, it meant a very large void in the friend selection pool. Leaving Benny with about two reliable people in his life he could summon to hang out with him. And one of them was married with kids, so call it one friend, really.

As the loss of Hayes weighed on him for an amount of time commensurate with the number of years they had been friends, he felt more and more self-conscious about using emojis. Which, the more he thought about it, had become something he grew overly reliant on in the years since smartphones started essentially “pushing” the use of emojis onto people. It became an entire language unto itself (just as George Orwell had forewarned with “Newspeak”). And if you “misused” the language in some arcane way, as Benny did with Hayes, God help you in terms of the ramifications to your social life, whether romantic or platonic. Benny supposed he had never really understood how powerful, how dangerous this new language was until he did something he thought to be “innocuous enough” with it. Yet the level that many people’s sensitivity had reached when it came to being sent the “wrong” or “incorrect” emoji was something Benny underestimated.

When he rehashed what happened with Hayes to his other remaining two friends, both immediately agreed that Hayes had overreacted. At the same time, both said they could also “understand where he was coming from,” which vexed Benny to no end. What was to “understand,” apart from the fact that Hayes had completely blown the harmless emoji—the harmless way it was wielded, more accurately—out of proportion? Then again, that was how people were now. So quick to aggravation, offense. Instantly assuming the worst about others without giving it a second thought. Because, after all, thought of any kind, let alone careful, measured thinking, was out of the question in the climate du jour. Benny had witnessed this time and time again, trying to convince himself that his eyes were deceiving him, that this could not be. Just as so many tried to convince themselves that seeing no longer meant believing. Not in this era of digital manipulation. Trust—faith—was something increasingly difficult to come by. Which is why, when the faint amount of trust a person did drum up was “compromised” by, say, the “wrong” emoji response, it could disappear almost instantaneously. Never to be regained again.

Benny would have liked to be able to tell himself “good riddance” to such ilk. Except the only problem with that was, now, all ilk were pretty much like that. Quick to be scandalized, quick to “cut ties.” For there were no ties that “bound” anyone to another anymore. Ever since the infiltration of emojis into the lexicon, that phenomenon—forever here to stay—was made all the more potent. Because the fundamental purpose of these “symbols” was to undercut any true sense of meaning (hence, rendering many interactions, de facto relationships, meaningless). Which is why it was rather ironic, of course, that people, like Hayes, tended to be so rattled by them when they didn’t fit within the “accepted” parameters of usage. For example, “laughing-crying” at the message that someone was laid off from their job. Oh no. That was a social faux pas beyond all forgiveness, evidently.

Ruminating on the absurdity of a friendship ending over something so trivial, something as insignificant as a tiny laughing emoji tearing up as a result of that laughter, was enough to make Benny emulate the face in question as he sat alone on his couch, staring in shock at the notification that Hayes had actually gone so far as to block him on all of his social media accounts. Apparently, all it took to end a friendship, no matter how “solid,” in the early twenty-first century was a simple “misfire” of one’s thumb, hovered over the wrong emoji. Because, in this life driven by the Newspeak language, all our emojis are all we have. And that’s exactly why, Benny realized, as he got up to get a beer from the fridge, we really don’t have much at all anymore. At least nothing that means a goddamn thing (except whatever you want it to).