Happy world emoji day Yahoo-
a recall and tribute to the Yahoo who brought emojis into our lives.
Today is World Emoji day. I am glad they dedicated a day after it from 2014 onwards. I feel every good thing in life should have a dedicated day!
Today you have a world full of choices of every possible stickers, gifs, emojis or any non-textual form of expression that can be communicated as a substitute for your actual words!
In fact, you can go to another level with face filters and turn your face into Trump, or let fairy-dust sparkle in your background as you video call your sister.
Humans of 2020- you are a generation replete with emoji choices!
But, you see, I am 80s born. I have a thing for firsts!
My first pizza place…
my first kiss…
my first baby…
my first online platform that brought emojis into my life!
Yes I am an emotional fool that way — my first YAHOO messenger emojis!
If you were born in 80s, and have chatted on yahoo messenger you will immediately know what all these means-
“I love it when you type real slow”
“hit me with your best shot, grandma”
“do me a favour haan, wake me when you are done losing”
rings a bell?
I am someone who has spent entire afternoons on yahoo messenger chat rooms. I love sarcasm, wit or any play of words. And when you pair it with an animated image — I am all yours!
Yahoo won me head over heels. Felt like first crush!
So Yahoo’s emojis, audibles, chimes, chat window, animated emoticons, “getting booted out of a room” are all heart tickling nostalgia for me!
They were my escape from the drudgery of boring life 19 years ago!The year I got married and subjected to the “helplessness” of being a dependent spouse in a foreign country!
Yahoo was my escape, my respite, my medium to forget that I was going through a non productive cycle of wash, rinse, repeat because of my low-self awareness and not seeing the bigger picture- well, that is a story for another day.
My Yahoo first!
When I began using Yahoo, they had just good old emoticons — non animated ones.
Those were enough to delight we emoji-virgin generation.
Sometimes they were misunderstood.
Sometimes taken literally!
Sometimes people would get offended for receiving one at a wrong time!
Psst — shall I tell you a dark secret ?
You could also download adult versions of those emojis hahahah …yeah!
But fortunately, only those people would see those XXX rated emojis who had also downloaded that particular “filthy” file.
So I guess some of you millennials weren’t scarred (i hope).
Then Yahoo introduced animated emojis.
That is when things began getting interesting! I mean real fun began!
And trust me when I say, those animated emojis were far better than the ones I see today…
What our days were like -
1.Teaching key board short cuts to send an emoji as you type.
2. Helping a friend in a room get an enemy booted out of a room. So if a few people conspired and targeted a person, we could get them booted out with enough “reporting”.
3.Chat with multiple people in multiple windows.
4. “ding dong” if someone took long enough to respond.
5. Pestering for pictures and videos.
- 6. Discovering and sharing hidden smiley codes- like easter eggs!
7. And how can this article ever feel complete without the mention of the funny yahoo ids we had.
“granny02119@yahoo.com” — did any of you recognise this?
“tomato02119@yahoo.com” — yeah I was that creative!
and rather questionable one —
“look_but_dont_touch@yahoo.com”.
Oh yahoo , yahoo , yahoo — why did you go away?
Happy World Emoji Day to you YAHOO! You are missed by a whole generation that spent the prime time of their lives with you!
We still love you!
