@allenholub
I think it counts as a word semiotically. Happy, sad, etc...
@allenholub We are in the midst of a linguistic change - where we replace alphabetic characters with emojis, like Chinese LOL. A future I won't be able to live in. I once did a linguistic study of opening lines for a dating company. Successful daters often started with one emoji. 😄
@amkhosla That's interesting (though I imagine target dating demographics are an issue). I read a similar study (by the original OkCupid folks) that concluded that starting a message with "Hi" was contraindicated!
@allenholub Yes. My studies indicated that too. Makes you think about how expressive an emoji is. Certainly this is more expressive than hugs. 😉 I'm sure someone has done a detailed linguistic study of emoji LOL. If you find an interesting one let me know.
@amkhosla That was my thinking, too. But it looks weird 😄