The Internet is Killing Parentheses

Yesterday, during a simple (and by “a simple” I mean “an incredibly tedious and time-consuming”) chat with a huge company’s customer-service representative, an emoticon appeared. Joyce, the alleged name of the representative, did not mean to type this emoticon, so I’m not irritated by her (at least not for this reason).

I’m angry at the internet. Yes, the entire internet. Whether it was the fault of the huge company’s chat system or my browser or computer settings doesn’t matter. What matters is text should not automatically convert into ridiculous tiny faces.

Here’s what happened: I emailed the huge company and received a response telling me I had to call them. I called the huge company and received word I had to chat with them online. This is where I met Joyce, who obviously told me I had to call them. She gave me a number to call, and she put it in parentheses. The last digit of the number was 8. So, the internet, in its infinite wisdom, thought, “This can’t possibly be a phone number. There’s an 8 and a ) right next to each other. Let’s give him an area code, six digits and some dumfounded glasses-wearing idiot’s face.”

Actually, I’m merely guessing it was an 8, as I didn’t actually see it under the emoticon. Using common sense, I determined the 8 probably represents glasses.

Emoticons have legitimate use in a small number of cases. I don’t use them, but when other people do, I don’t overreact like I am here. It’s fine. Keep using them, as long as you’re doing so appropriately.

The real issue here is the death of parentheses. If the internet is going to take it upon itself to insert ridiculous faces every time it sees an enticing combination of typed characters, soon the youth of the world will come to know parentheses as beginning with a ( and ending with an incomplete phrase and a weird face.

o wel……they aready typ lik ths…..wuts the harm lol haha