Forget Google-Apple burger debate, we need to talk about the hideous new WhatsApp emojis

h dear WhatsApp, we need to have a chat. A few months ago, I had written an article about how chat applications are becoming way too complicated - voice calling, filters, hashtags, stories and who knows what else.
WhatsApp was one of the few applications devoid of such clutter - until a few months ago that is when they introduced their new Status feature allowing users to upload photos and videos for their contacts to see, instead of the simple text-based status message which existed earlier. They also introduced Instagram like stories - which infuriated me even more.

While I was fuming over what was wrong with a text application being just a text application, WhatsApp went and overhauled their emojis. Now, emojis are extremely important in today's fast paced, SMS based world - so much so that a huge media conglomerate decided to spend millions of dollars in making a whole movie (a rather terrible one albeit) about them.

 

 

No matter how much we old school and slightly pretentious writers hate to admit it - emojis are the twenty first century's language. So when you change them, you better do a good job of it. And WhatsApp - and there is no better way to put it - has completely messed up. The new emoji set looks extremely cartoonish, caricaturish and simply ugly.
And this is not just one person's opinion mind you - people all the world have taken to social media to express their displeasure at the new emojis with the comments ranging from ugly to even disgusting.

Change is not always a good thing - sometimes one should not mess with the classics and with this change WhatsApp really seems to have attracted the ire of its fanbase. Many people on Twitter are even calling this update the worst update in the history of the chat application and while I will not go so far (the status update was the worst for sure), the emojis sure look like terrible in comparison to the old ones.

Whatsapp's new emoji set looks cartoonish, caricaturish and simply ugly

This change comes at a time when the CEO of one of the biggest tech conglomerates in the world is hard at work trying to make sure his company's mobile operating system gets the position of cheese in a cheeseburger right. Yes. Sunder Pichai is making sure the cheeseburger emoji on Android is as good (or should I say as precise) as the one on iPhones. Currently, it places the cheese beneath the patty - which I have heard is a cardinal sin in burger making.


This piece of news has gone viral - and people are very amused (and I should assume hardcore cheeseburger fans are even overjoyed) at the development. But what WhatsApp has done here is far worse that getting the placement of a slice of cheese wrong in one particular emoji - they have made the fun little nuggets of communication quite lifeless and caricaturish.
All this sounds like first world problems? Yes, maybe they are. But emojis are an integral part of twenty first century communication and WhatsApp is the biggest text messaging application in the world. Please bring the old emojis back WhatsApp. Don't mess with classics.