Once upon a time, when it became apparent that we needed more than just simple combinations of colons and parenthesis to do the job, some well-meaning coders put together a series of cutesy pictographs called “emojis” so that humans could express themselves in a way beyond written communication. But much like you were able to figure out how to spell “BOOBS” on your pocket calculator in elementary school, we quickly found a way to dirty up even the most innocent of icons and, as such, certain emojis are now no longer what they appear to be.
Jimmy Kimmel proved this phenomenon yesterday by sending a camera crew out, talking to people on the street, and asking them to identify the eggplant, peach, taco, and certain hand expression emojis to see if people knew their “dirty” meanings. The consensus was that most people under the age of 60 knew what was up, except for one mom who — bless her heart — said, “I can’t say anything else, my kids will be watching!” and then “A purple eggplant… with a green top that I would like to eat!”
Interestingly enough, these answers are wildly different than the last time Kimmel performed such an experiment, one year ago when Instagram banned users from tagging photos with the eggplant emoji. Selective editing or the idiocracy-izing of our great nation? Either way, give me life, liberty, and a dick-shaped emoji.
