It’s July 4th. For many Americans it means maybe they get the day off work, hang out with some friends or family, BBQ a bit, and enjoy a fireworks show.
For me, It means making some ASCII-Emoji art.
I’ve turned this into a bit of a Independence Day tradition on Twitter (RIP). Every year, I post a new version of the American Flag. It’s simple structure serves as a perfect canvas for commentary. A week after the first Presidential debates has me feeling …
🌀😳🌀😵💫🌀🫨🌀🤔🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 🥴🌀🫤🌀😣🌀😔🌀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀 🌀😖🌀🫣🌀😮💨🌀😠🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 ☹️🌀😵🌀😒🌀😫🌀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Looking back on this series² (if you can call it a series), each design is a reaction to the events happening at that point in time. At first, when I scrolled back to 2023 it took me a second to remember what it was referencing but everything came crashing back: the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in college admissions:
🎓🤑🎓🤑🎓🤑🎓🤑📕📕📕📕📕📕📕📕🤑🎓🤑🎓🤑🎓🤑🎓🥛🥛🥛🥛🥛🥛🥛🥛🎓🤑🎓🤑🎓🤑🎓🤑📕📕📕📕📕📕📕📕🤑🎓🤑🎓🤑🎓🤑🎓🥛🥛🥛🥛🥛🥛🥛🥛📕📕📕📕📕📕📕📕📕📕📕📕📕📕📕📕🥛🥛🥛🥛🥛🥛🥛🥛🥛🥛🥛🥛🥛🥛🥛🥛📕📕📕📕📕📕📕📕📕📕📕📕📕📕📕📕
I guess 2022 wasn’t so great either:
😵💫🫂🤒🫂😰🫂😵🫂❌❓❌❗❌❓❌❗ 🫂😶🌫️🫂😩🫂😭🫂😕🌪️🌪️🌪️🌪️🌪️🌪️🌪️🌪️😩🫂😨🫂😷🫂😓🫂🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🫂😱🫂😮💨🫂😫🫂😧🌪️🌪️🌪️🌪️🌪️🌪️🌪️🌪️🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🌪️🌪️🌪️🌪️🌪️🌪️🌪️🌪️🌪️🌪️🌪️🌪️🌪️🌪️🌪️🌪️🆘🆘🆘🆘🆘🆘🆘🆘🆘🆘🆘🆘🆘🆘🆘🆘
2021 … what else. COVID.
😵💫🦠🤒🦠😰🦠😵🦠❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹🦠😶🌫️🦠😩🦠😭🦠😕💉💉💉💉💉💉💉💉😩🦠😨🦠😷🦠😓🦠❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹🦠😱🦠😮💨🦠😫🦠😥💉💉💉💉💉💉💉💉❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹💉💉💉💉💉💉💉💉💉💉💉💉💉💉💉💉❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹
The Summer of 2020, our streets filled with protests:
❤️🖤❤️🖤❤️🖤❤️🖤✊🏿✊🏿✊🏿✊🏿✊🏿✊🏿✊🏿✊🏿🖤❤️🖤❤️🖤❤️🖤❤️✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽❤️🖤❤️🖤❤️🖤❤️🖤✊🏻✊🏻✊🏻✊🏻✊🏻✊🏻✊🏻✊🏻🖤❤️🖤❤️🖤❤️🖤❤️✊🏿✊🏿✊🏿✊🏿✊🏿✊🏿✊🏿✊🏿✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏻✊🏻✊🏻✊🏻✊🏻✊🏻✊🏻✊🏻✊🏻✊🏻✊🏻✊🏻✊🏻✊🏻✊🏻✊🏻✊🏿✊🏿✊🏿✊🏿✊🏿✊🏿✊🏿✊🏿✊🏿✊🏿✊🏿✊🏿✊🏿✊🏿✊🏿✊🏿
2019, living in a police state:
👮⭐👮⭐👮⭐👮⭐🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨⭐👮⭐👮⭐👮⭐👮👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👮⭐👮⭐👮⭐👮⭐🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨⭐👮⭐👮⭐👮⭐👮👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨
Remember in 2018 when I removed the egg from the salad emoji in and Piers Morgan had a tantrum? (This is a very niche current event, lol)
🥗🥗🥗🥗🥗🥗🥗🥗🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🥗🥗🥗🥗🥗🥗🥗🥗🥚🥚🥚🥚🥚🥚🥚🥗🥗🥗🥗🥗🥗🥗🥗🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🥗🥗🥗🥗🥗🥗🥗🥗🥚🥚🥚🥚🥚🥚🥚🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🥚🥚🥚🥚🥚🥚🥚🥚🥚🥚🥚🥚🥚🥚🥚🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅
And, of course 2017 brought us the first year of Trump’s presidency.
😶🆗😑🆗😔🆗😕🆗❓❗❓❗❓❗❗ 🆗🙁🆗😬🆗😟🆗😕👀👀👀👀👀👀👀😖🆗😦🆗😧🆗😳🆗❓❗❓❗❓❗❗🆗😲🆗😩🆗😵🆗😧👀👀👀👀👀👀👀❓❗❓❗❓❗❓ ❓❗❓❗❓❗❓❓ 👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀❓❗❓❗❓❗❓ ❓❗❓❗❓❗❓❗
Ok, some are better than others 🤪
What is Old is new Again
There’s a long history of making pictures with punctuation tracing back to 1867’s typewriter art which I’ve borrowed from heavily contemporarily with letterpress drawings and ASCII illustrations. I miss Joe Sondow’s emoji bots on Twitter (RIP) but Joan Stark’s ASCII work from the 90’s continues to thrive:
___ /` ,- _ ___ _(==0> |-| |._ ___ )_ _/ | | | | [___] / `____ | | |_.’ | ^| / _____/) |-|___| | | / / _:::_))_(___ | |/’-._/_ |___________| ‘-;_|_____ ` ||”””””””””|| | `######|_|_|| || ._ _,'{~-_}| || _) ( {-__}| || jgs /______` |_,__) ||
It starts with someone creative enough to think that a curly bracket and some slashes look like bunny ears {__/} but it only starts there. One of the reasons why ASCII memes are incredibly powerful is because anyone can tell stories with them. What may start as a cute drawing to ask for more kisses (aka “you want this bunny”)…
{__/}( • . •)/ > ❤️ u want this?
{__/}⠀ ( • _•) ⠀ ❤️< ⠀ give me kisses first >:(
… RAPIDLY evolves beyond it’s original conception due to the nature of how easy it is to manipulate. Replace the heart emoji with a new one and change the text and it becomes:
{__/}( • . •)/ > 🌎 u want this?
{__/}⠀ ( • _•) ⠀ 🌎< ⠀ abolish fossil fuels
I love this one from Jonny Son who added some more punctuation to create new characters and make it less with-holding 😉
{__/}( • . •)/ > 🏈 u want this?
{__/}⠀ ⠀⠀{__/} ( • ᴗ•) ⠀⠀(• . • ) / > >⠀⠀⠀🏈<
{__/} ⠀⠀⠀⠀ {__/} ( • ᴗ•) ⠀⠀⠀ ⠀(•ᴗ • ) / > 🏈 ⠀⠀⠀⠀ < <
{__/} ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ {__/} ( • ᴗ•) ⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀(•ᴗ • ) / > > ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀ 🏈 <
Make your own!
Just like you don’t have to be a linguist to invent slang you don’t have to know how to be a professional designer to create memes. One of the pleasures of emoji looking like pictures but operating like letters is that we don’t need any fancy editing software or GenAI to be creative and say something new.
{__/}( • . •)/ > 💌 u want this?
{__/}⠀ ( • _•) ⠀ 💌< ⠀ SMASH SUBSCRIBE
— jd
¹ DYK That Betsy Ross didn’t design the second American Flag? It’s true. Don’t hesitate using this fun fact at today’s BBQ.
² Some of the flag-art in this newsletter have been modified from their original designs because … I CAN DO WHATEVER I WANT 🙂