How the laughing emoji became the favorite insult of the lazy and incurious

Ally Rzesa/Globe Staff

The story certainly wasn’t intended to be funny, and it’s hard to see how it might be seen as such. The New York Times headline: “Eric Swalwell Faces Sex Assault Accusation as He Runs for California Governor.” A politician accused of assaulting a woman. Abuse of power. Trauma for the alleged victim.

And there, predictably, in the bottom right corner of The New York Times Facebook post sharing it, the symbol of belligerent, coarse, incurious stupidity: the laughing emoji. The indicator that someone thinks anything — corruption, rape, intolerance, even death — can somehow be a matter of high hilarity. Or at least the calculated posture that nothing is serious anymore, and ain’t I cool for feeling that way?

The laughing emoji — a little yellow face with eyes closed and mouth wide open (convenient to breathe through) — has long been the online signifier of passive-aggressive mockery and scorn. Sometimes a keyboard warrior (or, let’s face it, a bot) will up the ante a bit and use the laughing/crying emoji (irony is clever!). This one is a favorite of Elon Musk, ever determined to turn online discourse into the equivalent of nails across a chalkboard. The intent is basically the same. Use a symbol created to suggest genuine good humor and bonhomie into something cheap, mean, and easy. Use a happy mask to hide a distended face of inarticulate rage.

When I first noticed the proliferation of laughing emojis in my Facebook feed — yes, I still use Facebook — my response was one of puzzlement. Huh. Some stupid yob thinks that’s funny. Weird. Then I started noticing the patterns. Laughing emojis, like so much in our upside-down age, tend to be weaponized for political purposes. As in, I don’t like this, but I have nothing constructive to add, so I’ll just laugh at it.

The bulk of laughing emojis seem to be employed at the expense of ideas that might be lazily described as “woke.” Example: a Boston Globe story about Boston University pausing the removal of Pride flags from office windows, with university president Melissa Gilliam offering an apology for taking them down in the first place. This, apparently, is funny. But it would be a mistake to see the laughing emoji as strictly a MAGA thing. You’ll find the little laughing face affixed to all kinds of stories about scandals and potentially catastrophic missteps associated with the Trump administration. For some, the erosion of democracy is a jolly good time.

And sometimes the use of laughing emojis is simply bizarre. On Facebook you’ll find the symbol attached to:

A Boston Globe story about Massachusetts police and union leaders looking for ways to improve morale among officers. (That’s rich!)

A New York Times story about a bullfighter gored to death on the eve of a fight in Spain. (Ha! Hilarious!)

A Variety Australia story about a delay in Russell Brand’s rape trial. (Ho-ho-ho!)

Everybody has a different sense of humor. That’s part of what makes us all unique. Vive la différence, and all that. But it’s hard to imagine how any sentient human being might find any of the above funny. Laughing about a rape trial, or a goring death, simply smacks of nihilism. None of it matters. It’s all a joke.

What a hollow way to live. It’s schoolyard bully stuff, fueled by the insecure compulsion to belittle what you don’t want to understand. It’s a symbol of the incuriosity that plagues so much of contemporary society.

Emoji, of course, were created as a fun, conversational shortcut for friends to share. The magazine Wired broke it down nicely back in 2018: “Emoji are more than a millennial messaging fad. Think of them more like a primitive language. The tiny emotive characters represent the first language born of the digital world, designed to add emotional nuance to otherwise flat text.” Then they gradually became a rhetorical cudgel. As they say, this is why we can’t have nice things.

In the interest of disclosure, I’m not a big emoji guy. “Use your words,” our parents tell us when we’re young, excitable tykes; I guess I took the advice to heart. I was also using my words before the internet existed, and nobody was drawing emoji with a pencil or pen. I just never picked up the habit. What can I say, I’m pre-millennial. And no, I haven’t seen “The Emoji Movie.”

But I still appreciate the idea and function of emoji — at least when they’re not used as a feeble crutch, or a lazy person’s idea of a put-down. I’m all for sarcasm, when it’s clever enough, or when it actually illuminates some bit of inanity. But let’s face it: There’s nothing clever about posting a laughing emoji to a grave or troubling news story. Cynical? Yes. Smart? Not even close.

So please, go ahead and leave a laughing emoji if and when you read this story (more likely when you dismiss the headline with a smirk). Just don’t forget to LOL when you realize the joke’s on you.