Barry Obama got elected on the hard-tweeting backs of America's youth, but he's betrayed us in the very spaces we hold most dear: our phones and the Interweb. Ask one of the enthusiastic middle class white kids who cast their first presidential vote for Barry back in '08 how they're feeling today and they'll likely respond, "Damn Barry, I didn’t think you were gonna be all up in my sexts, homie."
The sad reality is that the long dick of the NSA is fucking us in every digital orifice. But fear not, where modern technology can bring faceless oppression it can also fuel revolution. To begin shielding your communiques from prying eyes, look no further than the humbly powerful emoji.
While we still fumble with clunky "words" and "sentences," the next generation will communicate only via tiny cartoon pictographs. Like our Egyptian forefathers, we will use the variable meanings of images to communicate complex systems of information. Skynet doesn't know that when my bro texts the cake emoji, he's referring to a babe with fat "cakes." Our innate human ability to attach multiple meanings to a single symbol will be our salvation.
In your everyday life you may not have that much to hide from Barry, but there is one essential function we still must conceal: buying weed. Even though my expired license claims The Evergreen State, I still have to rely heavily on the swirling leaf emoji. What you do with your own life is your business, but if you're going to hit up your boy for greens, you better know the NSA can stem three contacts deep from every communication you make, putting your dealer friends at risk. Adopt a weed emoji. You can codify deeper, one leaf emoji per gram needed, etc. Never use the cigarette emoji to symbolize weed. The cigarette emoji is for 12-year-olds stealing packs of their grandmother's Marlboro Light 100s. They deserve anonymity too.
It's always the 11-year-olds who figure out how to download something illegally before a giant corporation can figure out how to make them pay for it.
Now that you've smoked, you want to grab your bros and hit the burrito spot. Sure, you could just text "burrito spot," but why not just use emoj—WAIT. WTF. The greatest travesty of the digital world has nothing to do with spying, but does have to do with corporations imposing their white ass worldview which manifests itself in the sheer lack of a burrito or even taco emoji. I need my carnitas. Sure there's a beer and burger. Yes, there is the pizza slice and the ramen bowl, but that's all very east coast centric. Here on the best coast, we have a little thing called Mexican food, and, for most of us, the cuisine is tantamount to a religion, the taco menu serving as our commandments. Why must you spite us, cruel emoji overlords?
No food emoji though is more nuanced and powerful than the unassuming eggplant. Yes, the purple, tumescent, phallic looking eggplant emoji is king. And who is more conniving and sneaky than the U.S. Government? Babes. They're screen-capping your corniest and thirstiest texts to giggle over with their girls. Don't give them ammunition. If you're tryna smang, hit her with the universally accepted symbol for an engorged penis: the eggplant emoji. Boil all your clever wordplay and flirtations into one symbol that says what you really mean anyway. Either she gets it and is like, "Nah," aka that emoji of a girl crossing her arms X or she's like "Eggplant?" in which case you play it off like an accident with no evidence to the contrary.
So far, our discussion has focused solely on texts, but your shit is even more vulnerable on email. In 2014, you are what you Google, which means the company is the only one who knows exactly how depraved you are. The worst part is we don't even have a solution because Google makes the best fucking products. It is actually challenging to survive in modern business without using at least one Google product daily.
Sure, you may not be talking about anything illegal in your emails, but how much are you gonna fork up (conveniently via Google Wallet) when a rogue Google employee blackmails you with the threat of sending your PornHub searches to your mom and girlfriend? I don't have a solution here. I'm just saying, be weary. Text only from your phone and only in emoji.
Real talk though, it is a bit sad that even when not stoned and paranoid, I think twice about texting my bros about "1$raeli w@r cr1me$," wondering if the devils at Comcast are gonna combine my political musings with my desperate Kayak searches for plane tickets I can't afford to countries I'll never visit to put me on a no fly list. But, through it all, I have faith that the emotionally detached techno-kids of tomorrow will free us from tyranny. It's always the 11-year-olds who figure out how to download something illegally before a giant corporation can figure out how to make them pay for it. Only a dedication to more detailed and inclusive emojis will free us from the Orwellian nightmare brewing in our digital midst.
Angelo Spagnolo is a writer living in Portland, Oregon. You can follow him on Twitter here.
