Every now and again, I see one of those ‘what the emojis your teens are texting ACTUALLY mean‘ stories, and I’m reminded of why I’m thankful that I’m not a parent.

Nothing against kids, or teenagers, or parents, but I’m just thankful that I get to gloss over that shite instead of worrying myself over what a peach actually means – or all of those other new releases.

Don’t freak out, parents – here comes the truth bomb:

Yawn.

The one thing I would tell older folk is that LOL means ‘laugh out loud’ (but not literally), not ‘lots of love’, which can cause confusion on Facebook.

I really don’t care for emojis, preferring actual words and the occasional GIF, but now the scourge has reached the courts, and judges are being asked to legally interpret what emojis and emoticons mean.

Take for example this incident in San Francisco, as covered by The Verge:

Bay Area prosecutors were trying to prove that a man arrested during a prostitution sting was guilty of pimping charges, and among the evidence was a series of Instagram DMs he’d allegedly sent to a woman. One read: “Teamwork make the dream work” with high heels and money bag emoji placed at the end.

Prosecutors said the message implied a working relationship between the two of them. The defendant said it could mean he was trying to strike up a romantic relationship. Who was right?

Ultimately, a sex trafficking expert was called in, who testified that the high heels and bag of money would denote a working relationship, rather than a romantic relationship, with a crown emoji alluding to “pimp is king”.

Imagine studying law, working your way up to the position of judge, and then having to rule on this?

Over the past 15 years, the prevalence of emojis appearing in court has escalated drastically. University law professor Eric Goldman has been tracking this, and here’s a handy graph to chart that rise:

Society, man.

Right around the world, rulings are having to be made in similar cases. Take this example from Israel:

In 2017, a couple in Israel was charged thousands of dollars in fees after a court ruled that their use of emoji to a landlord signaled an intent to rent his apartment. After sending an enthusiastic text confirming that they wanted the apartment, which contained a string of emoji including a champagne bottle, a squirrel, and a comet, they stopped responding to the landlord’s texts and went on to rent a different apartment.

The court declared that the couple acted in bad faith, ruling that the “icons conveyed great optimism” that “naturally led to the Plaintiff’s great reliance on the Defendants’ desire to rent his apartment,” according to Room 404.

Goldman, who seems to be the authority on the issue, says that emojis and emoticons are an issue that the legal system is going to have to get used to, whether they like it or not:

“Judges need to be aware of the importance of the emojis to the overall communication when we run into these odd evidentiary issues,” Goldman says.

“We need to make sure that the emoji get proper credit.”

Do we, though?

If you need me, I’ll be SMDHAHICTT (shaking my damn head at how it came to this).

[source:verge]