McCulloch — “Thinking of emoji as gestures helps put things…”

Source: Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language — Gretchen McCulloch

Book page: mcculloch-because-internet-part-1

From: Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language — Quotes

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Thinking of emoji as gestures helps put things into perspective if we’re tempted to start thinking, “If words were good enough for Shakespeare, why aren’t they good enough for us?” We can pause and realize that plain words weren’t actually good enough for Shakespeare. A lot of what Shakespeare wrote was plays, designed not to be read on a page, but to be performed by people. How many of us have struggled through reading Shakespeare as a disembodied script in school, only to see him come to life in a well-acted production?