Why are the emoticons sent by parents always so embarrassing?

In today’s WeChat chats, the use of emoticons can really be said to have brought us endless convenience. Various emotions are reflected through emoticons, which is far more powerful than describing inner activities in a few hundred words. Expressive, so that people on both ends of the network can clearly know each other's current mood even if they cannot meet each other.

When chatting in a group, the presence of emoticons can quickly alleviate the embarrassment in the group and achieve the purpose of enlivening the atmosphere. "Fighting pictures" and "giving red envelopes" are always the most popular words in the group.

However, in the process of long-term use of emoticons, many emoticons have gradually changed their original meanings, and have become the meanings given to them by people over the years. For example, this chat emoticon:

In fact, this emoticon of two hands overlapping, invented by foreigners, originally meant "high fives to celebrate", but due to the influence of traditional cultural circles, we take this emoticon for granted It should be regarded as the meaning of "putting hands together" in Buddhism, and extends to the meaning of "praying for peace" and "praying for blessings"

In the past, when major disasters in a certain place were reported, social media was always indispensable. expression. It means praying for the people in the disaster-stricken areas and letting the victims rest in peace. But it is difficult for foreigners to understand, and they even make jokes like "Why is everyone celebrating such a serious disaster online?" /p>

But if you regard the difference in understanding of the meaning of emoticons as the difference between Chinese and Western cultures, you are also wrong, because the elders and younger generations in China use and understand WeChat chat emoticons differently. A typical case is this:

This "smile" emoticon is the first of all WeChat emoticons and is the most convenient to use. The elders around us like to use this emoticon to express "friendly smile and goodwill." ".

But they probably would not have thought that among young people, this expression expresses exactly the opposite meaning!

It represents "sarcasm, I don't want to care about you but I can't do anything about it" "I hate you very much, but my upbringing requires me to give you a fake smile." Sending such a compliment is a very unfriendly behavior in the social circle of young people, unless the other person is really the kind of person you hate. Otherwise, it is generally not posted.

If you look into the reason, most young people will definitely say that this smile is really "too fake" and "it doesn't make you smile." Obviously he is suppressing his anger and barely restraining himself."

Why does this little emoticon give people such an illusion? An He will tell you today with a more scientific answer!

Since this expression is a "fake smile", then we have to figure out what a "real smile" is

The first thing you need to know is: all real smiles mobilize the same muscles, just in degree There is a difference.

Next, we need to mention the following muscles:

Zygomaticus major, located on the side of the face, its main function is to lift the corners of the mouth;

Eyes The orbicularis muscle is located around the eyes and its main function is to close the eyes. Sometimes people's eyelids twitch because this muscle is trembling;

The orbicularis oris muscle surrounds the mouth and can close the lips tightly. .

If you are smiling from the bottom of your heart, the corners of your mouth will turn up, your apple muscles will swell, your belly will bulge, and grooves will form underneath it. No changes.

In a heartfelt smile, the contractions of the orbicularis oculi and zygomatic major muscles match. When a person laughs heartily, along with the elevation of the zygomatic major muscle and the contraction of the orbicularis muscle, the person's eyes will close, the pupils will become smaller, and the crow's feet will deepen.

The most common feature of many "laughing" expressions in WeChat emoticons is that the eyes are partially squinted into an upturned arc - contraction of the orbicularis oculi muscle + squeezing of the zygomaticus major muscle , the mouth is bent into a crescent - the influence of the zygomaticus major muscle.

In the "smile" emoticon on WeChat, the activity of these two muscles is weakened. The zygomaticus major muscle causes the mouth to curve into a crescent. The contraction of the orbicularis oris muscle causes the lips to tighten, which is generally considered to inhibit smiling. Activity of the orbicularis oris muscle can also be seen in "cute" and "snickering".

But when we look at the upper half of the face, the problem arises——

As mentioned earlier, the contraction of the orbicularis oculi muscle is an indispensable part of the smile. However, in There is no sign of contraction of the orbicularis oculi muscle in this expression. Therefore, we will feel that this smile is fake.

But this is not the only problem. Let’s take a look at a set of WeChat emoticons:

*From left to right are “smile”, “sad” and “goodbye”.

I believe everyone has read negative emotions from these expressions, and they have the same characteristic: the gaze shifts downward.

The downward shift of sight can be roughly summarized as a state of mind-tolerance. This change in gaze usually reflects a relatively negative mentality, such as guilt, disagreement (but expressing helplessness about the situation and no ability to change), anger (but suppressing it for the time being), shyness (afraid of seeing the other party's feedback), etc. . The following set of expressions are examples of negative emotions accompanied by a downward shift of gaze:

*From left to right are "grieved", "almost crying" and "puckered lips".

In short, the lower half of the "smile" in the WeChat emoticon is a normal smile after suppression, which is consistent with the mouth expression of a smile; but the upper half of the orbicularis oculi muscle does not contract, and the gaze shifts downward. , indicating that this smile is not only a fake smile, but also reflects a negative mentality. It's no wonder that this expression gives people a full of mockery and a chilling feeling.

However, you can’t use this as an excuse to send you “smiling” emoticons from your elders. Their understanding of smartphones and online culture is far less than that of you and me, not to mention that older people smile. When smiling, they prefer to look more kind and solemn, so they prefer suppressed smiles. They are not aloof, they just want to be dignified.