This is not talked about near often enough, and I feel compelled as a journalist to change that. Cher was recently honored as an icon at the Billboard Music Awards, but her music isn’t the only thing that’s iconic — her Twitter feed is InSaNe.
It’s a language all of its own. Cher’s tweets are half emoji, (and all caps) and she has mastered it in a way that we have not yet encountered. Not only is her Twitter feed completely devoid of chill (a woman after my own heart), but it is littered with emojis not to accentuate phrases, but in place of many words.
Sometimes she gives us cheat sheets to catch up with her.
Some of the time we can gather what she means through context clues.
Other times, it takes a bit more effort.
After following her for some time, you can begin to pick up on her slang: the toilet emoji, for example, usually means President Trump. The wave emoji means “see.” Many of her abbreviations are lost on me, but the longer I’ve been following her, the clearer her tweets have become — a bit like learning to read again.
Even she admits that her tweets, while sometimes “esoteric, insightful, hysterical” are at times “indecipherable… like chimp w/ typewriter trying 2 write ‘Hamlet.'”
She’s not wrong.
She should also never change.