Emoji Law Part 1: Emojis 101 with Tim Trad

Join Reminger Co., LPA and the Columbus Bar Association for a collaborative podcast series on emoji law. Emojis (from the Japanese e, “picture,” and moji, “character”) are an increasingly important way that we express ourselves. It is estimated that 2.3 trillion mobile messages have an emoji or two.   

Though they can be cute and fun, emojis can also contribute to misinterpretations and misunderstandings. Disputes concerning emojis can arise in many different legal contexts and there are currently no court guidelines for how judges should handle or interpret them. 

We will discuss this burgeoning legal issue with various stakeholders including social media influencers and members of the bench and bar. 

In our first episode, Kenton Steele (Associate, Reminger Co., LPA) chats with Tim Trad (CEO, @onlyincbus). Tim’s platform, @onlyincbus is one of the largest online community news outlets in central Ohio, producing over 4.5 million organic impressions every month. They review the following questions: 

• What are emojis? How are they used in everyday conversation? 
• How can they be used to convey tone/intent? 
• How has digital communication evolved in recent years? 

Transcript

KHS – Kenton H. Steele, Esq.

TIM – Tim Trad

KHS

Hello and welcome to this special joint presentation between the Columbus Bar Association and the Reminger Report Podcast on Emergent Technology.  This is going to be our first episode in a series we’re going to be putting on where we’ll be discussing emojis and the importance of emojis in the modern practice of law.  Now emojis are a depicted graphic language that has taken on an outsized importance in the modern world where more communication is happening digitally than face to face.  Disputes concerning emojis and what they mean can arise in lots of different legal contexts whether that’s, if a thumbs up in a text message means I am accepting your contract or if a squirt gun emoji in an instant message can constitute a threat of violence and potentially lead to a criminal sanction.  These types of questions are becoming more and more common place and that’s why it’s important for attorneys to stay abreast of these issues and know what they’re dealing with as it’s increasingly likely that they will see emojis come up in their practice.  Now, it may be helpful if we take a quick step back and give just a brief explanation about what emojis are.  Now, I was surprised to learn that the word emoji doesn’t have anything to do with the English word emotion.  Emoji is actually just combination of the Japanese word for character and picture.  So essentially emoji is just the Japanese word for pictograph. Modern emojis have their origins as I said in Japan with the first complete set of emojis being created in the mid-1990s by a designer at a Japanese telecommunications company.  But modern emoji are really a continuation of emoticons which people are likely familiar with which is just making a facial expression using symbols or characters on a keyboard.  You can think of a colon followed by a closed parenthesis to make a smiley face.  Now the use of emoticons became very common place again in the 90s as more people started to communicate digitally, but the origins of using emoticons actually dates back hundreds of years to when the first printed communications were taking place. So this is something that’s been around for a very long time but is gaining more and more and more importance as more things happen digitally and less things happen face to face.  Tim, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself.

TIM

Yeah, thanks for having me.  I run a local company called “onlyincbus” which is a, I call digital media.  We do everything from local news to entertainment.  We make products, things like that.  But my main goal is to really have as close of a touch as I can to like what’s going on in the city and trying to help people that live here access things they would be interested in.  So not just big brands, big media, stuff like that.  More of like finding out about who is doing what, how they’re doing it and you know.  I always use the example, I love cookies.  I want to find out whose got the best cookies.  So, however I figure that out, that’s great.  So I want to be that conduit for people to find whatever they’re looking for.

KHS

In that process of you know sort of relaying information to the larger community.  I would assume that requires like a substantial amount of communicating through online platforms.

TIM

Yeah, yeah almost exclusively.

KHS

Alright, what is that?  What does that process look like usually?

TIM

Um, I mean there’s a lot of communicating with people to figure out what’s going on.  Confirming information cause you don’t want to trust the biggest thing, right.  Once you say something that’s false or report something incorrectly the trust is lost, right.  There’s one example when a couple years ago there was a plant or something with the water treatment that had an issue and so people throughout the city were potentially drinking like poisonous water and we couldn’t find it anywhere.  Like I reached, somebody in the city told me about it and spent all this time figuring it out and then confirmed what was going on and then got that information out, right.  So a bunch of people since then have told me like, you know I didn’t hear about that anywhere else.  It was like a boil water advisory.  So the research is a big thing behind it, right.  Like when you hear about something you can’t just be like instant put it out you have to go find out.  Okay what is the actual story here, how accurate is that.  And then portraying it with some personality I think without completely skewing the story to fit your desire, you know.  Sometimes I report on things that I don’t agree with or that makes me mad and I have to share the information in a way that’s I’m still human but it’s not like…you can tell a story in multiple ways, right and trying to just get that information out.

KHS

Yeah and it sounds like there’s really a focus for you on providing information and providing value not just you as a character, I guess.

TIM

Yeah, yeah that was a big thing when I started the company.  I played music professionally for a long time, little success, a lot of failure in it and a lot of times people, you make it about yourself, right and a lot of times people like things, you see a movie because of who is in it not because the character they played, right.  I love this person, I want to do a thing, or I hate this person I don’t like that thing even if it’s good.   I experience both sides of that with the band world and stuff and with this I wanted to create a brand that had a personality.  Cause most of the time the owners of a company, Elon Musk, have a way bigger following than the company, you know Tesla, Space-X, same with Apple.  Tim Cook the CEO has a way bigger following than Apple.  I wanted to create the apple that had that personality of the owner without it all being about my face.  I didn’t want you to follow because you loved me and I didn’t want you to not follow because you did not like me which probably more likely.  And so creating something that had, that you felt like you were interacting with personality and not just a logo or a wall.  

KHS

And um, I know the answer to this but just for our listeners and viewers here, where are the platforms that you do this communicating?

TIM

Um, one of the largest is Instagram.  We use email.  I have a weekly newsletter which has been a lot of fun, that’s a long form.  We’re able to get way more information out, show a lot more personality in that.  With Instagram and social the general, you have to be shorter and it’s sometimes hard to tell tone.  I like to joke a lot and I like to poke fun at myself and in this instance the city, right.  Because you can love something and be critical of it.   Like I want it to get better.  Same with the crew.  I am a huge fan of the crew and we point out when there are areas that could be improved.  It doesn’t mean I hate them.  I do that with the city and the people are like whaaaa and there’s this big uproar.  And so communicating your tone and when it’s a joke in short form can be difficult.  So mainly through social and the newsletter, the email newsletter, those are main channels.  

KHS

You kind of hit on the topic that we’re here for, right.  If you know finding ways to put nuance and emotion into what can otherwise be a very dry means of communicating, right.  Where if I send an email or I put a post on social media and it’s just text and characters, it can be hard to figure out what you know the sense of what I’m actually trying to say.  How do you overcome that problem?

TIM

That’s _________I mean I use cadence and ah, and…the way that you craft the words to either communicate clearly that you’re joking or sometimes the use of emoji you know with a little laughing face or crying face at the end of something to let, try to you know give some hint that I am not entirely serious with this statement.  For example, I just put something out, there’s a couple accounts that are huge on the internet that poke fun at Ohio.  And so we like to come back at that kind of stuff and sometimes they’re not entirely wrong.  Some people take what we’re saying…I took this photo of this skyline years ago and a couple big accounts used it and it was like the best thing to do in Ohio, leave, right.  And, that’s hilarious.  I obviously am here and I love the city.  I shared that, I would say 95% of the people understood it was satire. It was just funny but I took the photo that they used to shame in the city.  I just found a lot of comedy in that and some people are like, you shouldn’t be doing that.  You know just coming after me so it’s not a win, but it’s not always a win but using some nuance in the way that you say it.  Some very clear sarcasm to try to let you know that it’s joking.  Um, or just consistency and until people learn.  You know there’s some stuff I say over and over and over again that people catch on sometimes.  

KHS

You know in getting ready to talk about this topic, a thing that was interesting that I found out is that the research is shown is that when you are talking to someone face to face, almost half of the information that’s relayed comes from non-verbal ques.  It comes from the tone of your voice, how your standing, your facial expressions.  Obviously you know you’ve got these micro expressions, how are your eyes shaped, how is you mouth shaped when you’re communicating and you lose that in text.  Sounds like you’ve kind of found some ways to recreate that nuance.

TIM     

Yeah, yeah. I have to tell you.  I mean we’re in the Columbus you know law office.   Three people  that I am aware of have asked me if I was here for a background check.  You know, I was like yeah that makes sense.  That’s how I look probably compared to what would normally walk through the door and how you dress.  So there’s definitely, when you’re behind, not only the internet wall but then also your face is not the main thing.    You know, every now I don’t make, I don’t completely avoid putting my face up there, I just don’t go out of my way to, to make it about me.  And people are like you’re an influencer.  I’m like I don’t want it, the term influencer is so holding a can next to your face and like you know making it all about you and it’s, I call it a suggester, right.  I’m just like here is some information.  Do with it what you will.  I lived here and I loved it, you might not, you know.  And so making it more about the story and less about how I look or present myself.  It helps in some areas but like you’re saying, the non-verbal ques get lost in that so if I’m a very sarcastic person, people might take some of the stuff I say as like very serious and that’s too bad. 

KHS

So on that point of, I think sarcasm is probably the best example right.  The toughest thing to pull off just through text.  Can you give us just some examples.  You know how would you maybe use an emoji to relay that something was sarcastic or that it was a joke.

TIM

I think stretching out the letters of something to try to recreate how you would say it is one thing.  For example, I just shared another joke about Columbus this morning and at the end of it I put like a laughing face and crying face.  So it’s like I’m joking but also there’s some accuracy to this, right.  And, so I think it’s like using a little bit of exaggeration and emotion.  It helps to kind of, you fall somewhere between there, cause I just put out the information or the joke with no reaction.  And my delivery is obviously via typing, not the way I’m talking so using those emojis to kind of exaggerate at the end is probably the thing I do the most.  

KHS

And, tell me if you would agree with this because I think I found this to be true.  I am not from the generation that grew up using emojis.  It is something that you know I’ve found in adult life, right.  But I think that there’s something intuitive about it.  I think especially, as you mention, you know using multiple emojis kind of, you add them up in your mind, it’s not something where you need to look up.  Okay, he’s got three smiley faces, two crying faces, what does that add up to.  I think there is something natural about it that you can communicate.

TIM

Yeah, I think it comes from the generation to, I’m gonna sound like such a get off my lawn god, but we grew up in a very transitional area from when I was in high school you know the internet was coming out and we had dial up, A- we’re all at home and I had to run home and get on AIM to talk to my friends.  Hopefully the people are old enough to know what I’m talking about.  But you know I went from that to working, running my business from a phone three to four years after I got out of high school you know.  So like that transition was such a huge change in communication that I think we still had that translation from in person communication to the phone.  Whereas kids today, like my younger sister is 27 and she’s like on the older end of you know kids.  And so it’s crazy to see 16 year olds and 18 year olds, and I’m like what the hell you guys talking about.  Because they grew up from day one having the whole world in their pocket and developed a different communication.  I think ours is like the first transition from face to face communication to digital and now they are like the second and third edition of digital evolving.  You know it’s almost like the AI becoming self-aware like these kids and stuff that they’re saying online.  We were in a weird time that I think emojis coming from emoticons, coming from a simple form of needing to get, even Twitter 140 characters when I was a kid, and now they got 280 so there’s way more. So we had to be very precise and concise with the words and I think using emoji to try to communicate that from the real world to the digital was something a little bit older people had to learn more I guess than them.  

KHS

And, I think you mentioning the Twitter character limit, that was the text character limit.  Like if you were going to send a text to somebody, 140 was, that was…………………

TIM

And that included our link too like that wasn’t, like you had to get it all in there.

KHS

Right, right.  And that I think that’s probably some useful skills that people from our sort of age, didn’t graphic picked up in the process there.

TIM

Yeah, how do you get your information and your point across quickly and effectively. 

KHS

So talking about, as you mentioned the younger generation, this is just, there’s nothing unusual about it.  There’s nothing unusual to you know people under 25 or even younger.   They do all of their communication and business on their phone and handle things that way whereas I think you look at people who are over 40 or over 50, they still place a lot of value in a face to face meeting and a handshake where the younger generation maybe doesn’t have the same importance put on that.  So, is that something that you see?  I imagine in your space and your business that the business opportunities that may be presented to you online occasionally.  

TIM

They are, I’m definitely not the norm and that I would prefer to sit in a room with somebody.  I like to feel like how its gonna draw out.  I get a lot of people that reach out and they’re like send me your price sheet or send me this.  I’m like no, let’s have a conversation and talk.  Like what are we trying to accomplish.  But I think I am very much in the minority there and also my kind of channel I’ve carved out is very weird, people are confused.  Like what do you do, you know they just, you can’t just easily pin it down and getting in a room with somebody and helping them to understand how I can be valuable to them is so much easier in a conversation than just like an email or whatever.  Obviously we do tons of work online, tons of work, tons of contracts, stuff like that.  I’m just a little bit more old school in that I would like to sit down for 10 / 15 minutes even if we can’t, I try to do video calls with people.   And just understand like where, what are you trying to accomplish and how do we go about that, you know.  I think there’s, it’s so fast paced with it being online.  I’m like lets just take a second and figure it out.  So I like that that a lot.  I find that there’s a lot of people who don’t, they’re like don’t want to, I just worked for a company for six months and nobody turned their cameras on.  We would have meetings on like you know whatever Teams or Zoom and all that stuff, and I’d be the only one with a camera on.  I’m like why are we doing this, you know.  And so I think there’s still some value in the face to face but it’s a lot easier to just email or text or whatever.

KHS

Right and that’s almost an interesting side effect of the pandemic and us all being locked in our houses for two years is we now, everyone knows how to use Zoom, everyone know how to hop on Microsoft Teams and have a meeting where you do have the opportunity to see each other’s faces if people turn their cameras on.

TIM

Yeah, and there’s a lot of value in that, don’t get me wrong.  But just sitting in the same room with somebody and kind of communicating is, nothing will ever replace that.  That video chat is definitely the close second versus…the emails are the hardest.  Cause people just don’t, again with the tone you know you can, like I like to joke and if, I’m not making like bad jokes it’s just like I am not a very serious person and so when they have like super serous email I’m like almost uncomfortable.  I’m like I don’t like this.

KHS

And even emojis have their use, right, to show you’re joking but sometimes even using one in an email can be difficult.

TIM

I definitely do it, yeah I definitely do it.  I’ll drop a thank you which I found the hands are praying, I’m like this is like a thank you thing and I’ll drop a heard every now and then when somebody, if I have to change a time on somebody or somebody does something to accommodate and I’ll be like you know, thank you and them a little heart.

KHS

I think of that as the best example of maybe the easiest way to explain how emojis can be used to convey tone is like a text message where you say, I can’t make it tonight.  If you just sent that on its own, it just sounds like hey, I didn’t want to show up.  But, I can’t make it tonight and a sad face or if there is like a breaking heart, you really know this person wanted to come and something came up and they can’t.  It changes the tone of a very simple message just with that one little addition.

TIM

Give a little personality behind that statement.  That’s very true.

KHS

So, let me ask you this and it’s okay if you can’t think of one on the spot but have you seen a place where an emoji has been misunderstood or lead to a confusion?

TIM

Have i………nothing in business.  My mom is still newer to the internet, I mean she’s good on the internet now but in our group chats she sent some stuff that was like what are you trying to communicate you know…it wasn’t very hilarious for me and my sisters.  Nothing in business yet.  There’s definitely stuff that I think is something and it’s not.  Like for years I thought this was a thank you emoji but is praying hands which is a lot different.  I’m pretty basic with mine now.  I use probably like the same five.  Just kind of like laughing in different forms, crying in different forms.  I’m a big gif guy.  I like gifs a lot too which is, that’s probably a separate story.  But I like to tell emotion and feeling through those.  I think you can communicate a ton.  But I can’t really think of a great example other than my mom just using random stuff and being like mom what the hell are you trying to tell me right now.  I don’t understand.

KHS

Yea, and I think you’re right. I think that memes, gifs is probably like it will be the sequel to this series.  Is that what all of that….

TIM

Can you sign a contract for the gif?

KHS

Right…Um, but I have seen I think you know the like emoji fails is like a thing you can look up, right?  

TIM

Yea, the most common one is really parents not understanding things.  

KHS 

The one that sticks out in my mind was a mom telling someone, hey, your great Aunt Susie passed away and then have like the skull emojis after it and that’s like, that’s not quite the meaning that….

TIM     

Yea, that’s a bit much.  That’s funny.

KHS

So, it is something that there is some nuance and it takes time to get up to speed but even like you were saying with the sort of closed hands, whether or not you understood what the intended meaning of it was…

TIM

It communicated it.

KHS

It communicated what you were trying to communicate. Like the emotion of that was coming across which I think is a very interesting and unique thing about the use of emoji.

TIM

Yea, I think so.

KHS

Is there, so, turning you know kind of brining us towards our close here, is there anything that you would like our just general audience to know about emoji?  What they should consider about it?  How they should look to see it, um, usually our kind of wrap up is what do we expect the future to hold?  What are we expecting things to look like down the road?  So do you have any insight that you think would be useful to our sort of legal audience here.

TIM

I mean if it’s in any way unsure look it up cause there is a lot of lude meanings for emojis that you wouldn’t know.  My mom learned that lesson the hard way.  

KHS

Stay away from produce if you can.

TIM

Yea, yea.  Most vegetables are not what you think they are.  There’s a lot of meaning there.  Um, not really.  I think they’ve kind of found their….if this was a couple years ago, having a real gun and not a squirt gun you know some of the violent stuff they definitely had some pushback with the colors of the emoji.  One thing that I do is I am very pale and I’ve just always used the standard orange guy, right.  I’m not like trying to fit my thing.  But I don’t think I’m the audience.  I think a lot of people felt represented once they offer shades.  So, there was a lot, I think there’s a lot that was done after they made the mistakes.  I’m sure there’s going to be stuff later but I think that this was like maybe a couple years ago including people the way that they look.  You know that seemed like such a simple thing.  And then the violent side of stuff.   Like they have like a real gun at the beginning, they don’t have it now.   They had to get rid of that.  So, I think that they kind of found their way back from some of the bigger issues.  But yea just look up what the produce means before you use it.

KHS

Yea, solid advice.  Tim, I thank you so much for joining us.  

TIM

Thanks for having me.

KHS

This is incredible insightful and useful and can you let people know where to find you, where to…

TIM

Just onlyincbus –  o-n-l-y-i-n-c-b-u-s.  We’re on all the channels, mainly Instagram.  The newsletter is called the Scarlett Letter.  Comes out Friday mornings.  That’s like my, my I want to say pride and joy.  We’ve really been having a lot of fun with.  It kind of wraps up major news, local news and hopefully some information that you may not have heard about to adding some value there.  It’s a lot of fun stuff.  It’s called the Scarlett Letter.  You can subscribe to that on onlyincbus.com.  

KHS    

Alright, excellent.  Well thank you again Tim and thank you to our viewers and listeners for joining us today.  Please make sure to join us for our next installment of this special presentation with the Columbus Bar Association and the Reminger Report Podcast.