Bianca Bosker's Blog

Photos by Heather Marie Photography

Nash Grier has a tendency to wreak havoc on malls. One time in Iceland, a single tweet about his whereabouts brought 5,000 girls to a shopping center in search of Nash and his sidekick, Jerome Jarre.



“The mayor of Reykjavik said they’d never seen that, even when The Beatles came 30 years ago,” Jarre said later.



Then there was the incident in St. Louis. One minute, 16-year-old Nash, his 14-year-old brother, Hayes, and his 19-year-old best friend, Cameron “Cam” Dallas, were jostling each other through a sleepy mall that looked one “for lease” sign away from closing. The next moment, flocks of teenage girls, summoned by some unspoken signal, descended in a swarm of outstretched arms to gawk at three Internet celebrities they’d only ever seen on cell phone screens.



"You're so hooooottttt," someone wailed.



Girls brought their phones to their faces and stared at Nash through blinking iPhone cameras, as if gazing directly at his highlighter-blue eyes might be as dangerous as gaping at the sun. The shop clerks, all older, seemed at a loss.



If you think One Direction might be a rehab clinic, chances are you’ve never heard of Nash. Among smartphone-carrying girls from 12 to 20, however, he’s already being compared to Bieber.



A little over a year ago, Nash, a rising junior from the suburbs of Charlotte, North Carolina, used his iPhone to do what millions of American teenagers have done: He joined Vine, a social media site launched by Twitter to share looping videos that are up to six seconds long. He started posting bite-sized clips filmed in his bedroom, or, for something truly exotic, the local Wal-Mart. These mini-movies, with titles like “When you can't find your phone in your pockets…" trade on the mundane minutiae of high school life, and they drive girls wild. In that particular clip, Nash rummages through his pockets for his phone, finds nothing and hurls the pillows off a sofa. “You are awesome my inspiration every day ,” gushed one of the hundreds of thousands of comments posted to videos like that one.



Nash's Vines have rough edges that make them look as though they’ve been shot by a bunch of high schoolers messing around. Because frequently, they are. There's Nash shimmying on a snowboard, and Nash riding a shopping cart. His most popular Vine, which has 1.3 million “likes,” is a selfie filmed in his parents’ SUV. He records himself looking quizzically at his kid sister as she mangles the lyrics to Lorde’s pop hit “Royals” — “You can call me queen bee” transforms into “You can call me green beans.”



"Really... Green beans?", posted November 2013









Like chugging a Red Bull laced with Pixy Stix, the videos hit female adolescents with the emotional equivalent of a sugar high. They’re carefully-edited, six-second jolts of humor that are big on action, short on subtlety and long on relatability. Jarre, who co-founded a Vine marketing company that previously worked with Nash, calls it “snack content.” And it’s true: The videos may not be particularly good for you, but to his target audience, Nash’s Vines are as addictive as junk food.



His 9 million followers have earned him the top spot on Vine, ahead of bigger names like Jimmy Fallon, Ellen Degeneres and yes, even Bieber. (Vine, which has over 40 million members, declined to share the age breakdown of its audience, but marketers who work closely with the service say it skews young, toward people Nash's age.) Add Nash's Vine following to the number of fans watching him on Instagram (6.2 million), YouTube (3.3 million) and Twitter (3 million) and you’ve got a kid with higher social media ratings than the White House. Startups, salivating after Nash’s devoted audience, have offered the teen shares of their companies in exchange for a retweet, according to his managers. Nash's team also confirmed that major brands will pay the star between $25,000 to $100,000 to plug their products in a six-second clip and share it with his fans.



Nash has reached those heights in spite of several major controversies that have already plagued his short career. He's been called sexist, racist and homophobic in connection with a Vine telling girls how to be attractive; another video mocking Asian names; and a clip in which Nash suggests only gay people are afflicted by HIV, then shouts "fags!" while barely hiding a grin. Nash apologized for the HIV clip, claiming he'd been "in a bad place" when he posted the video, since deleted, in April of last year. Yet that "bad place" seems to have been more than a few-month phase: He's also purged multiple pejorative tweets about "homos" or being a "damn queer" that once littered his Twitter feed, as well as a post from May 2012 that read, “Gay rights? Nahhh."



Those uploads, whether they reflect Nash's beliefs or are merely the thoughtless mumblings of an immature teen, run counter to the "clear-eyes-full-hearts" image Nash tries to foster. The goal of his Vines "is really to make people smile," he said. And for a certain class of adolescent, if you tried to design the world’s most viral human, you couldn’t do better than Nash.



He’s got prom king good looks and magnetic, made-for-selfie blue eyes. He’s hilarious, at least according to the teens watching him, who happen to be among the most wired people on the planet. He’s a relentless self-promoter. And he’s mastered the art of “authenticity” — that combination of staged closeness, strategic imperfection and calculated self-deprecation that’s the key to charming the web.



Earlier generations of celebrities grew their fame exuding an aura of glamorous inaccessibility. Nash, however, has built his on distilling the utterly unremarkable into blink-and-you-missed-it clips, starring a seemingly available kid as matinee idol. He’s the good-looking class clown millions of girls dream of knowing. And, if they have a smartphone or an Internet connection, they can feel like Nash is their pal.



“He’s got all the right pieces in play at the right time,” said Jeff Hemsley, an assitant professor at the University of Syracuse and author of Going Viral, which explores how ideas spread online. “And people love it. They share [his videos] over and over again.”



The whole boy-next-door persona can seem contrived among celebrities of a certain stature, but Nash genuinely gives off the impression of someone who’s still more 16-year-old kid than groomed child star. He favors Vans sneakers, enjoys crossing hallways by skateboard and has little overt interest in humoring reporters who might have flown in from New York to follow him around for a weekend. He’ll stay up late having a pillow fight in his hotel room, and get excited when he sees posters emblazoned with his name.



But Nash, of course, is not average. Nash is famous. As he ducked away from the screaming throngs at the mall, leaving them with nothing more of himself than the same digital images, an uncomfortable truth became clear: The closer you get to Nash, the farther you feel from him. On Vine, Nash can post a single video and make millions feel he’s talking directly to them. In person, you can feel lucky to get a full sentence. At the dinner table, waiting for his takeout, he stares at his phone. He slips easily into the clipped, non-committal generalities of the disinterested teen. (How much has your life changed since you started making Vines? "A lot. A lot.") And he now has a PR company to manage who gets access to him. The most intimate moment most fans get to share with Nash is taking a selfie. All this raises a few questions: How precarious is stardom built on the mirage of a personal connection? Can Nash keep an aura of availability as his celebrity grows, or will he travel further out of reach, only to be replaced by a nearer star?

Nash is, after all, only the latest in a string of nobodies who’ve become sponsorable online somebodies by bypassing agents and taking their talents directly to the web. In its short life, Vine has spawned a suite of homegrown celebrities who are creeping toward six-figure salaries thanks to an exceptional — and exceptionally strange — talent that until now had little marketable value: the ability to capture attention with six-second bursts of humor or skill. They include Viners like "KingBach," a 26-year-old actor who has landed a role on Showtime's House of Lies, and "BatDad," a father whose Batman alter ego helped him land a lucrative gig pimping laundry detergent for Tide.

Infographic by Jan Diehm for The Huffington Post.







Like other Vine sensations, Nash hopes six seconds of fame will be the gateway to something more lasting than 15-minute stardom. He “isn’t really monetizing right now,” according to Alan Spiegel, one of Nash’s three managers including his father. Instead, having conquered the smartphone, Nash is going after larger screens that can put distance between an idol and his fans.



A year into his Vine venture, Nash has nixed his college plans and dropped lacrosse, which he once counted on as his ticket to a school like Princeton or Penn. His new dream, he said, is to be “the first, like, George Clooney or Leonardo DiCaprio who starts from the Internet.” According to the logic of a plucky teen who’s excelled at most of the things to which he’s set his mind, going Hollywood is, despite its risks, purely the most logical career route.



“You can play professional lacrosse, but they make less than a teacher’s salary now. I always thought about that. And it’s a very difficult career, a short career, as a pro athlete,” Nash explained. “I was like, ‘I can be an entertainer until I’m 75!’ So logistically, it seemed better. And I liked it better.”



Nash recently landed a deal to appear in a yet-to-be-specified movie produced by Dreamworks-owned AwesomenessTV and the director of Varsity Blues. This spring, Nash also moved out to Los Angeles with Cam, a Vine star and aspiring actor Nash met through the social media site, so the two teens could be closer to their agents at William Morris Endeavor. Nash's father, Chad Grier, declined to share details about their new living arrangement, as the boys "are stalked on a fairly regular basis as it is."



Depending on how you look at it, these milestones could be harbingers of future success — or evidence of how precarious six-second celebrity really is.

“There’s always someone coming, always someone funnier, cuter, more engaging, which is why [social media] stars today are seeking out professional managers and agents,” said Brian Solis, a digital analyst and anthropologist with the Altimeter Group, a research firm. “They have to fight for relevance. And they have to be able to monetize the popularity while they have it.”

Hayes and Cam joke around with Nash after posing for photos at Wizard World. (Photo by Bianca Bosker)







A few months ago, Nash flew to St. Louis to enjoy another new perk of fame that had come only recently: the ability to charge people to meet him in person. He, Hayes and Cam — Vine sensations with a few million followers each — were making their first appearance at Wizard World, a fan convention that seats its talent behind bouncers. For $150 plus tax, “VIPs” would get a photo with the guys, an autographed headshot and entry to a Q&A panel with the three Viners. The tickets — well over 500 in total — sold out.



On Friday, the group's first day in Missouri, Nash showed up half an hour late to a radio interview. He was wearing sweatpants and a gray sweatshirt. “I can’t breathe,” whispered Julia, a 13-year-old fan, as Nash, Hayes and Cam approached the station. Julia had set up the talk radio appearance by messaging Nash's father on every one of his social media accounts. As the trio entered, she rearranged her sweater and smoothed her hair. The guys shuffled past her, taking little notice. At someone’s urging, they turned around to pose for the obligatory photo, then settled themselves in a small circle with their backs to their fan. Julia stared at their huddle, but failed to elicit a reaction.



Nash has a collection of catchphrases — including "Nashty," "or nah" and "zayummm" — that his fans repeat themselves and sport on T-shirts.











When he does open up, Nash can sound like a male Miley Cyrus who’s spent too much time with televangelist Joel Osteen. A great song is a “banger,” a babe is a “bae,” sketchy stuff is “ratchet” and Nash’s trademark expression (which, in fact, his managers would like to trademark) is “nashty.” In the next breath, Nash will say he is “so blessed” to have such loyal fans, and argue what’s holding back many Viners is the “filth” in their videos — more specifically, the “f-bombs,” “cuss words” and “racial stuff.” The Grier family attends what Nash's father calls “rock ‘n roll church,” and Jesus Christ gets occasional shout-outs in Nash’s Vines. (Nash himself regularly consults a Bible app on his iPhone.)



Asked whether Nash's faith has shaped his view of gay people or same-sex marriage, Chad Grier, answering on his son's behalf, wrote in an email, "Nash believe [sic] in equal rights for all people," but "is not a political buff nor does he wish to engage in politically charged debates especially when he is not very well educated on a particular issue." Grier said of the HIV Vine that Nash "knows what he did was wrong," and is "extremely sorry." The video, he wrote, had been "aimed at entertaining [Nash's] handful of friends/followers at the time who all thought sophomoric and inappropriate humor was funny. It’s not."



Nash's controversial HIV Vine from April 2013, which has since been deleted from his account.









The upbeat teen Nash plays on smartphone screens diverges so sharply from the kid who lashed out against "homos" that it can be hard to shake the sense his online image is at least in part a carefully constructed fiction — one more staged than his casual candids might suggest. Nash discusses "filth" in terms that hint he may consider it imprudent for business reasons: "You don't want to come off as stupid. You don’t want to have racial slurs. You don't want to limit yourself. You want an audience that [includes] anyone from 2 years old to 50 years old," Nash said in an interview, before his controversial Vine had resurfaced. What does best for his audience, he added, is "anything that’s upbeat, anything that’s happy — nothing with like a bunch of profanity or anything bad in it."



Nash's father said his son wants to use his platform to "communicate positive messages and to support positive causes" — and not, presumably, to spread misinformation, as in the HIV vine. His decision matters: Audiences are so devoted to these online sensations that they're likely to be influenced by whatever sentiments come through their screens. When Shawn Mendes, another teenage Vine star, launched his debut album and asked fans to "get this bad boy to No. 1," it took them just 37 minutes to push it to the top slot on iTunes.



Vine’s most popular user almost ditched the service before he ever really got started. Nash said he posted a few videos to Vine shortly after it launched early last year. Then he deleted it along with every other social media app and canceled his phone’s data plan — a purge meant to help him focus on sports.



A few weeks later, he re-downloaded Vine at a teammate’s urging. This time around, his first video, “How to wake up like a thug,” got him 1,000 likes and 4,000 followers after it was shared by another Viner with a large following. “I was like, ‘Holy crap! I have to keep this up,’” Nash said. His second clip earned him thousands more fans. “And then I didn’t want it to stop,” he recalled. “I made Vine after Vine after Vine.” Nash used a Sharpie to scrawl “100,000” on his chest, thinking he’d make a video to try to get 100,000 fans. By the time he’d edited it to his satisfaction, he’d hit 130,000 followers. Then, Nash said, Vine “was, like, my life.”



Nash scrutinized the techniques of Vine stars like Marcus Johns, a college student with several million fans, for clues about what would draw the largest audience. Currently, the 12 most popular Viners are each variations on the same formula: They are all comedians, they are almost all men and many of them are God-fearing Christians who bleep f-bombs and steer clear of sex. Their videos also hum with a level of energy that can be exhausting in high doses. There is no filler or downtime, only punchlines and story climaxes in continuously looping six-second doses. “It’s fast, it’s punchy, it’s like a party,” said Hemsley, the expert on viral phenomena.



While Facebook can feel like the Wal-Mart of social networks — the brightly-lit social media superstore teeming with parents — Vine can evoke a basement rec room on a Friday night — young, frenetic and full of inside jokes. There are pretty girls filming staged sleepovers in one corner, someone belting out John Mayer somewhere else and everywhere, the attractive fraternities of male Viners who film “collabs” (collaborations) they use to help each other get more fans.



Nash realized from his study of Vine that the blockbuster formula had two ingredients: He had to be funny, and he had to be clean. On camera, his catchphrase is “You gotta bae? Or nah? You tryna dae? Or nah?” Off camera, it’s “don’t limit your audience.”



“I like being the center of attention,” Nash said matter-of-factly. “I want to be in the limelight, basically.”



Behind the apparent spontaneity of Nash’s videos is a shrewd creator who knows just what to feed social media. He'll film his clips over and over again until nothing feels rushed, or spend hours on editing. Nash has an instinct for crafting short skits that go down easy in the din of the school bus or cafeteria, where his teenage fans inhale his videos. “Kids still want programming, but they don’t want to sit through Boy Meets World" — a mind-numbing 24 minutes long — said Rob Fishman, a former Huffington Post editor who is now the co-founder of Niche, a marketing platform that connects brands with social media creators, including Nash. "What Nash and these guys do is they fill that void.”



Knowing that videos take longer than text to load on Vine, Nash takes special care to give every clip a title that hooks viewers into waiting — vague, but just specific enough to set up the joke: "Hayes Grier is a little late" or "Looking through old pictures like…" or "I'm never making eggs again.." He also tries never, ever to publish videos in the middle of the day. He saves them for after 3:00 in the afternoon — just as teens are streaming out of school and pulling out their phones.



"Hayes Grier is a little late," June 2014









The artistry of Nash’s self-promotion sometimes seems to outshine the substance of the videos themselves. Other Vine stars might spend days perfecting their uploads, devising elaborate sets or creating ingenious stop-motion animations. For Nash, however, developing, planning and shooting an idea takes him "anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour.”



During a cab ride in St. Louis, Nash did all three between stoplights. He was flicking through his phone in the backseat and grumbling about how an obscure rap song he discovered on YouTube had hit iTunes’ top 10 list after he’d featured it in a Vine. And then — action!



“Make an awkward smile,” Nash directed Cam while the two sat squished together. Nash held his iPhone at arm’s length and started to record.



“I’m going to ease into it,” said Cam, a former model. He looked ahead, straight-faced. Then, slowly, Cam rotated his head toward the camera and bared his teeth. Awkward! They cracked up. Nash saved the clip.



He posted it two weeks later on his second Vine account — the less scripted “messing around” channel, “Nash Grier 2.” It wasn’t up to the standards of his main feed, he explained later, where each video “has to entertain everyone.”

“I want the reputation that if Nash did it, it’s going to be perfect," he said.

Photo by Heather Marie Photography

Nash has a tendency to fixate on the things he’s passionate about, at times to the exclusion of just about anything else.



When he was in middle school, football was everything. Nash worked toward a dream of becoming a "Super Bowl MVP NFL quarterback" by setting up drills for himself in the backyard, his father said. Nash would force himself to run laps around the family’s two-acre property, or sprint through old tires he arranged on the lawn.



Then, it was lacrosse. Chad Grier said he watched his son spend hours after school practicing alone with a lacrosse stick and a bucket of balls. Vine replaced lacrosse. And now, Nash says he's "trying to steer away from being called a Viner." He's prioritized YouTube videos and auditions in Los Angeles as he works to reinvent himself as a Hollywood star.



As Nash describes it, it’s not that he suffers from a short attention span, so much as he’s driven to pursue anything that’s hard to get. “I’m in school a lot less. Everyone’s like, ‘Oh, that's a big risk for a kid who’s making videos on the Internet,’” said the teen, who's taking his high school courses online. “When people say ‘that's risky’ or when the odds are not in my favor, I’m more motivated than ever.”



It's his fans who may be easily distracted. It's true that other, less popular Viners have already leveraged social media stardom to secure more traditional media deals. The singers Us the Duo, for example, scored a record contract, and Brittany Furlan, a comedian, is developing a TV show. Yet some half-dozen comedians have cycled through the top spots on Vine since its debut. And as Furlan told TheWrap, "[T]he lifespan of people on Vine is short." Nash's slurs haven't so far led to mass boycotts of his Vines — "He didn’t really know what he was doing, he was a teenage boy," said one girl, whose friends have also stayed loyal — but the rate at which he's adding new followers has fallen by half since the beginning of the year, according to marketing platform Niche.



The Griers are also on a steep learning curve. Chad Grier recently quit his job selling IT software to help run 26MGMT, a management company focusing on Vine stars that counts Nash, Cam and Hayes among its five clients. A former quarterback, Grier is also the football coach at Nash’s private school and trained another one of his sons, Will, who was recently recruited by the University of Florida Gators. Nash’s mother works distributing vitamin products, and his stepmother juggles several part-time jobs.



Nash has taught himself most of what he knows about making videos for the Internet. His film studies started on a Mac computer in the family’s living room, where he used Apple’s free Photo Booth software to direct short films starring him and his brothers. More recently, using money he earned plugging Sonic milkshakes and Virgin cell phone plans on Vine, Nash bought himself a camera and video-editing software that he learned to use by watching tutorials on YouTube. He also manages all his own social media accounts, and has been savvier than most Viners about spreading his followers from Vine to Twitter to Instagram to YouTube to Snapchat. (Nash also encourages his fans to follow him on Mobli, a social media startup with which he has an endorsement deal.) In the span of a few hours, he'll coach his brother on wooing fans — "Dude, you've got to get better at answering questions" — and counsel his dad on his wardrobe needs.



"Failure," Nash said, "that's my biggest fear."



At one point during the weekend, Chad Grier leaned over Nash’s shoulder to admire a photo he had taken while skateboarding around the St. Louis Arch. Nash had angled the picture so that his feet appeared to be on either side of the landmark, and he planned to post it on Instagram.



“That’s an artsy black and white picture!” Grier said.

“Actually, it’s not black and white,” Nash corrected him. “It’s actually a vignette with negative saturation.”

Wizard World "VIPs" wait their turn to start taking photos with Nash, Hayes and Cam. (Photo by Bianca Bosker)







By Saturday morning of Wizard World, Nash's hotel had come to resemble a refugee camp for well-dressed teenage girls. Fans camped out on the floors where Nash's managers had rented rooms, hoping for a glimpse of the Vine stars as they exited the hotel. No luck: The guys were whisked downstairs through the service elevator into a black Escalade waiting below.



During their drive, Cam gawked at Wizard World attendees in Star Wars outfits, and remarked he could "have a fucking field day messing with people."



Nash punched him.



"No! We're not playing right now!" Cam protested



"Oh, we're not playin' right now. It's not a game," Nash said, lilting his voice to make it clear "not playin'" meant "not foolin' around." He clarified, for the uninitiated, that the guys have a no-filth challenge: "We play this game: Whenever someone cusses, they get a smack."



The boys were deposited at a concrete hangar by the convention center, and Nash installed himself behind a table flanked by security. Facing him were throngs of squirming teens corralled behind metal guardrails.



"Will you marry me?" a “VIP” asked the 16-year-old with a ring pop as she filed by to claim one of his autographed headshots.



This was the closest most of the girls had ever been to their idol. But thanks to the stream-of-consciousness updates Nash dispatches online (“I LOVE ACNE. YES. WOO.”), his fans have the sense they know every detail about his daily routine.



“He just got highlights,” one said with authority. Another: “What’s that water that Nash endorses? … Yeah, I bought it.” A third girl confessed, "I Google-earthed their house."



Nash has worked hard to manufacture that unique sense of imitation-intimacy that’s only really possible online, where “likes” are easily conflated with love. He knows a noticed fan is a loyal fan, and in St. Louis, he filled empty moments in the car or in line at the skatepark currying favor with followers by “liking” their Instagram photos and replying to their tweets. Nash’s devoted work ethic is both admirable and off-putting, betraying, as it does, the sense he’s ignoring humans around him to flatter adoring strangers online, all at his own convenience and discretion. During a brief break from signing photos, he stood behind a black curtain in a makeshift waiting area answering his fans’ tweets.



“I favorite them and they freak out,” he explained. It was difficult to hear him. A few feet away, there were hundreds of real-life fans, all freaking out.



Julia, the teen from the radio station, was among the girls waiting for a turn to see Nash. She used to like One Direction, she said, but now prefers the Vine guys “because they’re so much more real.”



“You can relate to them. You have a chance of being followed by them on Twitter or Instagram. But with One Direction, it’s like, no way,” said Julia. She counts Hayes among her Twitter followers and gets alerts on her iPhone each time one of her Vine idols tweets.



“One Direction sings and that’s great,” agreed her friend, who'd brought a piece of jewelry as a gift for Nash's stepmother. “But with these guys, you feel like you could actually have a conversation with them. They wouldn’t be stuck up or stuff like that.”



At the receiving line, Nash was mute and all business. Sign a headshot, slide fan’s proffered gift under the tablecloth, mug for a selfie, repeat. In one 15-minute stretch, he broke his silence only to exclaim that the ink had smudged on one of his signatures.



Finally, it was Julia’s turn. She held out a picture of Nash, which was affixed with a Post-It note on which she'd been made to write her name in order to expedite the autograph. Julia bounced from her left foot to her right. Nash consulted the Post-It for the name of the person to whom he should dedicate the photograph — "Julia" — and bent over his Sharpie.



“Do you remember me?” Julia asked.



Nash looked up at her for a moment before returning to the photo, where he scrawled what in another lifetime might have been a yearbook inscription: “Julia ♥ I love you!!! You’re the best."

“I remember your face," he said. "But I don’t remember your name."

Nash signs two of several hundred photos he autographed in the course of one afternoon at Wizard World. (Photo by Bianca Bosker)







After six hours of signing photos and posing for pictures, the three Viners were released. That night, while the guys were at a skateboard park blowing off steam, packs of teen girls milled about the lobby of the hotel. It was past 10 p.m., and the girls were still huddled together — most standing away from their parents, some hugging under blankets in the cool spring air, others loitering around the Outback Steakhouse where Nash, Hayes and Cam had eaten the night before.



A high school soccer team was staying at the hotel as well, and the boys, all around the girls’ age, stood equidistant from each of the female groups, darting glances in their direction. There was no mingling. The girls checked their phones, bringing up Instagram photographs of the boys they wanted so desperately to see in real life. The members of the soccer team looked confused.



That night, Julia’s friend, who’d been perplexed by Nash’s aloofness earlier in the day, shared some big news in a text message: “Nash followed me on Twitter!” she wrote. “I’m so happy!”



With the press of a button, all was forgiven. Nash was back to being the teen heartthrob — digital, but lovable again.



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RÉSEAUX SOCIAUX - L'un de mes amis les plus proches a publié quelque chose de très suspect sur Instagram le mois dernier: rien. Lui et ses acolytes sont partis en excursion de quatre jours, et pendant tout le temps de leur périple aucun d'entre eux n'a partagé la moindre photo.



Sur Instagram -- la plateforme de partage par excellence pour tout ce que l'on fait de plus distingué et d'impressionnant -- le silence n'est pas d'or. C'est un gigantesque signal d'alarme nous informant qu'il est grand temps de s'inquiéter.



Et c'est ce que j'ai fait.



Que faisaient-ils? Qui d'autre était là-bas? Qu'est-ce que je ne savais pas? Est-ce qu'ils étaient en train de vivre le meilleur moment de leur vie? Tandis que je fouillais dans les comptes Instagram de mes amis à la recherche d'indices, j'ai réalisé qu'une nouvelle forme d'anxiété était apparue, qui s'empare de nous quand les gens décident de garder le silence sur les réseaux sociaux alors qu'ils vivent une aventure hors du commun. La cause? Le MoMo (Mystery of missing out, littéralement le mystère de passer à côté).



Aux premières heures du partage de photos en temps réel, voir de jolies photos de nos jolis amis faisant de jolies choses nous donnait la FoMo (Fear of missing out, autrement dit la peur de passer à côté des événements que nous voyions sur nos smartphones). Mais ça c'est du passé. Désormais, nous sommes tellement habitués à recevoir des nouvelles du front que quand Instagram reste muet, le MoMo rôde.



La FoMo frappe lorsque l'on voit toutes ces choses amusantes que font les gens, vous comparez leurs tranches de vie avec les miettes que vous ingurgitez, et vous décidez de rester connecté, même si vous savez qu'il est aussi possible de partir. Mais avec le MoMo, vous n'avez aucune idée de ce que font vos amis. Ce qui veut dire presque à coup sûr qu'ils passent un moment exclusif, génial et vous n'êtes même pas assez cool pour savoir que ça existe.



"Nous en sommes venus à vouloir profiter d'une fenêtre indiscrète sur la vie de tout un chacun et quand cette fenêtre devient sombre, c'est comme si la personne avait tiré les rideaux pour cacher quelque chose», déclare Rob Fishman, ancien confrère du Huffington Post américain et co-fondateur de Niche, plateforme marketing connectant les créateurs sur les réseaux sociaux avec les marques. "La MoMo peut s'avérer encore pire quand on ignore ce qui se passe que quand on peut voir chaque selfie qui a été pris.»



Pendant l'été, la saison des selfies baignés de soleil et empreints du message "ma vie est mieux que la tienne", un compte Instagram silencieux attire encore plus l'attention qu'un compte très alimenté. Ainsi, étrangement, la vantardise ultime sur Instagram, c'est de ne rien partager du tout. Si une aventure n'est pas publiée sur les réseaux sociaux, ça doit être ultra spécial.



"C'est comme tout ce qui est exclusif. Si vous le voyez de l'extérieur et vous ne savez pas ce qu'il se passe, ça a l'air plus cool qu'en réalité", estime Elena Sheppard, rédactrice et amie qui entretient activement son compte Instagram. "Vous ne vous sentez pas aussi mal quand vous savez ce qu'il se passe. Quand vous en savez pas, c'est un peu du genre: ‘Mince alors, ils ne veulent pas que je sache.' "



Le professeur Mizuko Ito, anthropologue culturel à l'Université de Californie, estime que le mal-être qu'on ressent face au silence sur les réseaux sociaux a pour origine nos habitudes d'envoi de textos. Depuis les années 90, les téléphones portables nous ont habitués à des conversations aussi légères que fréquentes, ce qui a pour effet d'amener un contact constant avec les gens que l'on connaît. Quand ce contact est interrompu, cela nous gêne.



"Ce que vous décrivez au sujet d'Instagram fait partie de cette norme sociale qui émerge depuis maintenant un petit moment en corrélation avec l'essor de la communication mobile, qui crée une attente de connectivité et de partage", a déclaré Mizuko Ito dans un e-mail. "Si cette norme n'est pas respectée, cela envoie le signal de quelque chose d'inhabituel ou manquant. C'est similaire à n'importe quelle sorte d'exigence de connexion sociale, qu'il s'agisse de dire bonjour à ses collègues dans le couloir ou d'envoyer une carte d'anniversaire à un ami. Si ces choses-là sont laissées de côté, nous l'interprétons comme une espèce d'entorse aux codes sociaux."



Parce qu'il peut être très frustrant de devoir deviner ce qu'il se passe derrière un silence sur Instagram, j'ai mis sur pied une typologie très pratique pour vous aider à comprendre ce que vous ne voyez pas.



Explication #1: Le silence signifie que les gens s'amusent trop.



Tandis que je consultais le compte Instagram de mes amis lors de leurs vacances, je me suis imaginé deux scénarios: soit le voyage était une horreur et il n'y avait rien à publier, soit ils s'amusaient énormément. Énormément. Ils s'amusaient plus que lors de n'importe quel autre voyage précédent, c'est-à-dire un voyage avec moi.



Un compte Instagram qui reste muet suggère que son propriétaire était trop pris par le moment pour nous le faire partager, ou que ce qu'il faisait était si époustouflant qu'il n'a pas ressenti le besoin d'en parler à tout le monde. Le silence peut réveiller certaines anxiétés sociales restées enfouies depuis le lycée.



"Je me souviens qu'au lycée, les filles les plus cool n'étaient jamais aux soirées, et tout le monde se disait,' Oh mon dieu, ce qu'elles font en ce moment est si génial qu'elles n'ont même pas le temps d'être à nos soirées!'" déclare Elena Sheppard. "C'est un peu la même chose si quelqu'un ne publie rien sur Instagram. Ils font quelque chose de génial et n'ont pas le temps de le partager."



Explication #2: Le silence signifie que les gens ne s'amusent pas du tout.



Instagram n'est pas fait pour raconter la soirée passée à regarder Netflix en mangeant de la nourriture thaï, ou à s'abriter de la pluie tandis que votre enterrement de vie de garçon se noie dans le désastre. Lorsqu'un compte reste silencieux, ça peut vouloir dire que rien d'amusant, rien d'exaltant ou rien de remarquable n'est arrivé. Si vous organisez une soirée chez vous, ne pas publier de photo sur Instagram ça peut être comme faire un film sans star: rien qui vaille la peine d'être vu, aucun sujet de discussion.



"Le message que je reçois quand quelqu'un reste muet sur Instagram c'est soit, ‘Je m'amuse tellement que je n'ai pas le temps de prendre mon téléphone,’ soit ‘Ma vie est tellement misérable que je n'ai rien à dire sur le sujet,’", indique Fishman. "Le silence sur Instagram indique les meilleurs comme les pires moments."



Mais pour savoir lequel des deux est vrai, il va sûrement falloir demander.



Explication #3: Le silence signifie que la personne refuse de se servir d'Instagram.

Can I ban cell phones and tablets from my wedding ceremony?!?!? I can't deal. http://t.co/vUfRoaJJ

— Brittany Figaro (@BFigaro) August 13, 2012

Il y a quelques mois, j'ai reçu un fascicule pour un «concierge en mariage sur les réseaux sociaux» qui, pour 3000$, publie sur Instagram des photos de votre mariage et lance un hashtag sur les réseaux sociaux. Mais ça semble déjà être du domaine du passé. La nouvelle mode du mariage? Le rejet des réseaux sociaux. C'est la même chose pour les dîners, les réceptions et les vacances. Plus la règle anti-Instagram est stricte, plus l'événement a du cachet.



Quand aucune photo n'est postée d'un événement spécial dont tout le monde a entendu parler, "l'action anti-Instagram procure plus d'intérêt à l'événement qu'il en aurait eu autrement", déclare Rob Fishman. C'est un facteur d'anxiété pour ceux qui veulent savoir et les participants: “Les gens, surtout lors des mariages et des événements spéciaux, ont clairement commencé à bannir Instagram, ce qui selon moi déçoit les invités qui se disent: ‘Pourquoi m'a-t-on demandé de confirmer ma présence?’"



Explication #4: Le silence signifie que vos amis essaient de se montrer gentils.







Lorsque j'ai évoqué le problème du silence sur Instagram à un ami entrepreneur me rendant visite de Californie, il m'a répondu qu'il ne publiait rien de son séjour à New York parce que ce serait impoli. Il n'avait pas le temps de voir ses amis, alors pourquoi publier des photos de son voyage à travers le pays? Des images couleur sépia de l'Empire State building n'auraient fait que blesser les gens, les offenser ou leur donner l'impression d'être laissés pour compte parce qu'il ne les avait pas appelés. C'est une façon édulcorée de considérer le MPAC: vos amis proches ne disent rien de leurs aventures pour ne pas vous blesser.



Pour ceux d'entre nous qui explorent Instagram à la recherche de photos inexistantes, il est difficile de savoir quel scénario se joue derrière l'objectif. Donc message à tous les vantards d'Instagram: si vous voulez vraiment vous montrer, ou faire penser aux gens que vous êtes fabuleux, ne postez rien. Ne rien révéler attire beaucoup plus l'attention, et mieux encore, vous permet de vous concentrer sur ce que vous aimez.



De plus, quand vous briserez finalement le silence, vous aurez tout l'amour du monde, selon Rob Fishman. Attendez quelques semaines, dit-il, et "vous décuplerez vos likes. Des centaines de likes."

One of my closest friends posted something highly suspect on Instagram last month: Nothing. He and a handful of friends were on a four-day getaway, and none shared a photo the entire time they were gone.



On Instagram -- the de-facto distribution hub for the fanciest, most impressive things we do -- silence isn’t golden. It’s a big flashing sign that says it’s time to freak out.



And I did.



What were they doing? Who else was there? What was I missing? Were they having the best time ever? As I combed through my friends' Instagram accounts in search of clues, I realized that there is a new kind of anxiety that seizes us when people on exciting adventures opt to stay dark on social media. It's caused by MOMO -- the mystery of missing out.



Back in the early days of real-time picture-sharing, seeing pretty photos of pretty friends doing pretty things infected us with FOMO, the fear of missing out on the parties we saw on our smartphones. But that was then. Now, we’re so used to getting “live from Miami” dispatches that when Instagram goes mute, the MOMO descends.



FOMO strikes when you see the fun things people are doing, you’re able to compare their bottle service with the rerun you have on, and you can decide that you’d rather just stay put, even though you could go out. But with MOMO, you have no idea what your friends are up to. Which almost certainly means it’s exclusive, amazing and you’re not even cool enough to know it exists.



“We’ve come to expect this pervasive window into everyone’s lives and when they go dark, it’s like they’ve pulled down the curtains and are hiding something,” said Rob Fishman, a former Huffington Post colleague who co-founded Niche, a marketing platform that connects creators on social media with brands. “The FOMO can be all the worse when you don’t know what’s going on than when you’re privy to every selfie at every second.”



In summer, the season for sun-dappled, my-life-is-better-than-yours selfies, a silent Instagram feed calls even more attention than a noisy one. In an odd way, the ultimate Instabrag is not sharing at all. If an adventure isn’t posted on social media, it must be ultra special.



“It’s like anything exclusive. If you’re on the outside and you don’t know what’s happening, it sounds way cooler than what I’m sure it is,” said Elena Sheppard, an editor and friend who keeps an active Instagram account. “You don’t feel as bad when you know what’s happening. When you don’t know, it’s like, ‘Oh shit, they don’t want me to know.”



Professor Mizuko Ito, a cultural anthropologist at the University of California, Irvine, said discomfort with social media silence has roots in our text messaging habits. From the '90s onward, cellphones got us accustomed to frequent, lightweight communication that allowed for constant contact with people we know. When that's disrupted, we're disturbed.



"What you're describing with Instagram is part of this social norm that has been emerging for some time now in tandem with the rise of mobile communication, where there is the expectation of connectivity and sharing," Ito wrote in an email. "If that norm is violated, it signals something unusual or amiss. It's similar to any sort of expectation of social connection, whether it is saying hello to co-workers in the hallway or sending a happy birthday message to a friend. If it doesn't happen, we interpret it as a social breakdown of some kind."



Given how frustrating it can be to guess what’s going on behind the silent feed, I’ve assembled a handy taxonomy of mute Instagram accounts to help you make sense of what you’re not seeing.



Explanation #1: Silence means people are having too much fun.



As I scrutinized my friends’ Instagram feeds during their MOMO-inducing vacation, I decided one of two disaster scenarios had played out: Either the whole trip was a bust and there was nothing to post, or they were having a blast. Tons of fun. More fun than they'd ever have on another trip, i.e. one that included me.



An Instagram feed that stays mum suggests the would-be sharers were too caught up in the moment to involve the rest of us, or doing something so outrageously fantastic as to surpass the need to boast about it. The silence can awake social anxieties that have been dormant since high school.



"I remember in high school, the coolest girls were never at the parties, and so you were like,' Oh my god, they're off doing something amazing that they don’t even have time to be at our parties!'" Sheppard said. "It's kind of the same thing if someone isn't posting on Instagram. It's like they're doing something amazing and they don't have time to share it."



Explanation #2: Silence means people are having no fun.



Instagram isn't the place to broadcast the evening you spent watching Netflix while eating Thai delivery, or huddling from the rain when your bachelor party turns out to be a bust. When a feed stays quiet, it can mean nothing fun, nothing fancy or nothing of note happened. If you're a host, throwing a dinner party that gets no ‘grams can feel like making a movie with zero stars: there’s nothing worth seeing, nothing to talk about.



“The signal I get when someone goes dark on Instagram is either, ‘I’m having so much fun that I don’t have time to pick up my phone,’ or ‘I’m living such a miserable existence that I have nothing to brag about,’” said Fishman. “Instagram darkness connotes either the best of times or the worst of times.”



Figuring out which scenario is true usually comes down to asking -- a tip off to your stalkerish ways.



Explanation #3: Silence means there’s a ‘gram ban.

Can I ban cell phones and tablets from my wedding ceremony?!?!? I can't deal. http://t.co/vUfRoaJJ

— Brittany Figaro (@BFigaro) August 13, 2012

A few months ago, I received a pitch for a “social media wedding concierge” who, for a $3,000 fee, would post Instagram photos from your nuptials and get a hashtag going online. But that already feels passé. The new “in” wedding trend? Social media bans. The same goes for dinner parties, get-togethers and vacations. The stricter the no-Instagram rules, the greater the cachet of the event.



When there are no photos dispatched from a special occasion that people know is taking place, “the ban induces more interest than there would be otherwise,” said Fishman. It's anxiety-producing for those watching and anyone attending: “People, especially at weddings and private events, have certainly started to impose bans on Instagrams, which I think makes guests pretty disappointed because they’re like, ‘Why they even bother to RSVP yes?’”



Explanation #4: Silence means your friends are trying to be nice.







When I complained about Instagram mutes to an entrepreneur friend visiting from California, he protested that he wasn’t posting during his New York stopover because it would be rude. He didn't have time to see friends, so why broadcast his cross-country trip? Hefe-hued photos of the Empire State building would only have made people feel hurt, offended or left out that he hadn't bothered to call. It's a rosier filter through which to see the MOMO: your closest friends may be staying silent to spare your feelings.



For those of us scouring Instagram for non-existent photos, it’s hard to know which scenario is playing out behind the lens. So anyone Instabragging, take note: If you really want to show off, or make people think you’re fabulous, don’t post at all. Not boasting is even more attention-grabbing, and better still, keeps you focused on what you're enjoying.



Plus, when you finally break your silence, you’ll get lots of love, according to Fishman. Wait a few weeks, he said, and “the pump is primed, my friend, for big-time likes. We’re talking hundreds."

J'ai récemment envoyé un texto à une amie pour lui dire à quel point j'étais contente de rencontrer son nouveau copain, et, parce que le mot "contente" ne transmet pas autant d'énergie sur un écran d'iPhone, j'ai agrémenté mon texte de ce qui me semblait être un innocent "." (Traduction: j'ai tellement hâte de sortir ce soir!) Sur un téléphone Android, me suis-je ensuite rendue compte, ce choix aurait été plus que contestable: les danseuses deviennent "." (Traduction: tu es une playgirl en cavale!)

Les Emoji ont un problème d'image. Plutôt que de ne pas apparaître du tout, ce qui serait moins grave, les symboles que vous pensez envoyer peuvent se transformer en de méconnaissables imposteurs lorsqu'ils passent d'un téléphone à l'autre. Je veux dire “classe économique” sur mon iPhone (), vous lisez “chaise Ikea” sur votre Android (). J'ai souhaité à une fille dont c'était l'anniversaire un “feliz cumpleaños .” (Allons danser, jolie petite femme espagnole!) Sur son Android, elle a vu “feliz cumpleaños .” (À L'AIDE, UNE ARAIGNÉE! ÉCRASE-LA!!)

L'Android de Google, l'iOS d'Apple et le logiciel Windows de Microsoft, ainsi que Facebook et Twitter, chacun interprète l'“alphabet” Emoji avec des variantes aussi légères que significatives. Ces mains qui applaudissent et ces yeux qui louchent n'ont rien du langage universel que le monde voudrait. Ils sont les outils personnels et les images de marque choisis par des sociétés informatiques, et le résultat est parfois irrégulier et troublant.

Ce phénomène a différents noms: le “fossé Emoji,” la “barrière Emoji” ou, mon préféré, l'“emojungle.” Si le problème pouvait être illustré, ce serait avec l'Emoji au cœur poilu, "" qui apparaît sur les Androids quand un propriétaire d'iPhone envoie un “.” Vous êtes averti(e).

Willem Van Lancker, ancien employé d'Apple ayant dessiné des centaines d'Emoji pour l'iPhone, s'est dit consterné d'apprendre que sur les appareils Android, les équivalents de ses icônes “avaient presque l'air de signifier une émotion différente.”

“C'est très similaire aux langages parlés," a-t-il déclaré. "Le sens se perd avec la traduction.”

Pour comprendre où a commencé cette mauvaise communication, j'ai appelé Mark Davis, co-fondateur du consortium Unicode (qui utilise un comme signature d'e-mail). Unicode, association à but non lucratif visant à standardiser l'apparence du texte dans les programmes informatiques, a décidé en 2008 d'aider les entreprises à réduire les différences d'Emoji en mettant sur pied une liste de 722 symboles formant un unique “alphabet” Emoji (Unicode a annoncé la semaine dernière que 250 symboles seraient encore ajoutés.)

Mark Davis indique que pour créer cette liste de référence, Unicode a d'abord dû assembler trois polices de caractère Emoji créées par les plus grands fournisseurs de télécommunication du Japon -- Softbank, KDDI et DoCoMo, qui ont inventé ces petits symboles colorés. Unicode s'est appliqué à sélectionner une unique illustration et nom de référence pour accompagner chaque Emoji, ainsi "," par exemple, est devenu le symbole pour "visage avec une expression triomphale."

Pour construire cette tour de Babel Emoji, il a fallu faire avec de minuscules images pixelisées et d'énormes variations entre les séries d'Emoji japonais:

Des photos d'un document Unicode datant de 2010, montrant un brouillon des images envisagées par l'organisation dans sa tentative de compiler tous les Emoji japonais dans une seule grande liste. Les colonnes, de gauche à droite, indiquent: le symbole proposé par Unicode, la version de DoCoMo de cet Emoji, la version de KDDI puis celle de Softbank. La dernière colonne sur la droite correspond au symbole d'Apple.

Les trois polices de caractère Emoji ont ensuite été rassemblées en une seule police de caractère, mais celle-ci a finalement ramifié en une demi-douzaine de polices. Les firmes technologiques, qui suivent le guide Unicode à leur discrétion, ont développé leurs propres interprétations de “bonhomme de neige sans neige” ou “visage de persévérance.”

Seul élément de consensus entre les collections d'Emoji: la couleur des visages, d'une teinte que Mark Davis appelle “la nuance de orange à la Homer Simpson/John Boehner.” (Boehner? “C'est comme ça que nous l'appelons en interne parce qu'il a une espèce de coloration orange,” indique Mark David.) Les adeptes d'Emoji ont fait circuler une pétition en faveur d'une plus grande diversité raciale, et Mark Davis a indiqué qu'Unicode incitait les créateurs de logiciels à adopter “une représentation neutre et pas racialement marquée pour les humains.”

La police de caractère Emoji d'Apple -- revisitée par des artistes tatoueurs, sculptors ainsi que d'autres tech géants de la technologie -- est devenue le plus célèbre des "alphabets," allant même jusqu'à surpasser les standards d'Unicode. Mais une inspection plus poussée révèle une série de symboles définis par des intérêts corporatistes.

Le premier Emoji d'Apple est arrivé sur les iPhones vendus au Japon, qui n'ont plus fonctionné que sur le réseau Softbank exclusivement. Au vu de cette alliance, il est peu surprenant de voir que les Emoji se calquent sur les designs de Softbank: comme celle du géant japonais, la version d'Apple de “femme avec des oreilles de lapin” comprend deux filles en train de danser; son “alien” ressemble à une créature mauve, rétro et PacManesque; et son “danseur” est une femme aux bras tendus, portant une robe rouge.

Selon Willem Van Lancker, Apple aurait étudié les originaux japonais, mais au final le design de chaque emoji était décidé par ses concepteurs. “Pour être honnête,” dit-il, quand il faut en produire des centaines, certains sont faits en 30 minutes.”

Même dans la précipitation -- ou peut-être grâce à elle -- Apple est parvenu à transformer les emoji en opportunité publicitaire pour la maison-mère. L'emoji pour “écouteurs” n'est autre que les EarPods d'Apple. Les deux emoji de calendrier correspondent à l'application calendrier d'Apple. Et chaque emoji lié au smartphone représente un appareil semblable à l'iPhone.

De gauche à droite, les emoji conçus par Unicode, Apple, Google, Twitter et Microsoft. Pour rendre les choses encore plus confuses, les emoji d'Android peuvent varier d'une version à l'autre, ou d'un téléphone à l'autre.

D'autres compagnies sont aussi coupables, elles qui bidouillent leurs emoji afin que les illustrations restent en accord avec ce qu'elles considèrent comme leur image de marque. Les premiers emoji d'Android consistaient en superpositions d'émotions sur la mascotte verte de la marque, ainsi les sentiments de joie ou de frustration étaient représentés par le robot officiel Android (“Je t'en prie de me quitte pas .”) Les emoji représentant des gestes de la main proposés par Facebook sont pensés pour ressembler à la main blanche symbolisant le bouton "like" omniprésent. D'après le directeur des polices de caractère de Microsoft, Si Daniels -- qui se sert d'un là où Mark Davis avait un --, la volonté de Microsoft de voir ses emoji refléter l'apparence et l'impression de ses logiciels pour smartphone que les symboles ont été repensés deux fois en deux ans. Une première série d'emoji a été lancée avec le logiciel Windows 7.5, en 2011. L'année suivante, Microsoft les a retirés pour lancer une nouvelle série plus proche de l'apparence et de l'image de marque de Windows.

De gauche à droite, l'emoji "alien" conçu par Unicode, Apple, Google, Twitter et Microsoft.

"En concevant notre [emoji], nous avons suivi le design d'Unicode d'assez près, tout en y instillant les principes graphiques de Windows prédominants à l'époque: des couleurs pleines, stylisées, simples, sans textures, dégradés ou faux effets," déclare Si Daniels.

En comparaison, les célèbres emoji d'Apple font terriblement vieux jeu. Les symboles ont des ombres, de la profondeur et un aspect tridimensionnel, survivances de l'époque Steve Jobs où prédominait le design skeuomorphique. Une illustration simple sans texture ou ajouts est désormais de rigueur. Apple a déjà abandonné les lambris en faux bois et en cuir dans ses autres logiciels, et ses emoji pourraient suivre le même chemin incessamment sous peu -- ce qui serait peut-être un rude choc pour ceux qui se sont familiarisés avec les symboles de la marque. “Dans un sens, j'espère qu'ils ne changeront rien", déclare Van Lancker.

De gauche à droite, les emoji "danseur" conçus par Unicode, Apple, Google, Twitter et Microsoft.

Microsoft travaille déjà à la mise à jour de ses icônes. Unicode a récemment publié un tableau affichant ses illustrations emoji à côté de celles des autres compagnies, et Si Daniels dispose de “consultants en police de caractère” pour repenser certains designs de Microsoft.

La cheval de manège est un prétendant sérieux à un relifting.

“Nous nous sommes demandés pas plus tard que la semaine dernière: ‘Devons-nous changer la direction de notre cheval parce qu'il va dans un sens opposé aux autres?’” -- le cheval de Microsoft est tourné vers la droite, tandis que ceux de la concurrence sont tous tournés vers la gauche -- “Puis nous avons pensé: ‘Les manèges vont-ils tous dans la même direction? Avons-nous raison et tous les autres ont tort?’ Et nous avons lancé des recherches pour savoir dans quelle direction tournent les manèges, et apparemment ils vont bien tous dans la même direction, sauf une ou deux exceptions célèbres,” indique Si Daniels.

Le manège de Microsoft, sur la droite, comparé au même emoji d'autres compagnies.

Aussi futile que cela puisse paraître, une direction standard a de l'importance car les messages peuvent varier d'un logiciel à l'autre. Ainsi, un texte sur un chien poursuivant une voiture peut se transformer en une voiture poursuivant un chien.

J'ai donc demandé à Si Daniels: le manège de Microsoft est-il bien correct?

“Cela dépend si l'on se trouve dans le manège à regarder dehors ou dehors à regarder vers le manège," a-t-il répondu. "C'est, à n'en pas douter, le genre de détails que nous étudierons.”

Peu de temps après avoir raccroché le téléphone, j'ai reçu un email de Si Daniels.

“Je pense que notre cheval de manège doit changer de dircetion," a-t-il écrit. Puis, soit par confort soit pour éviter toute confusion: ":-)”

J'ai récemment envoyé un texto à une amie pour lui dire à quel point j'étais contente de rencontrer son nouveau copain, et, parce que le mot "contente" ne transmet pas autant d'énergie sur un écran d'iPhone, j'ai agrémenté mon texte de ce qui me semblait être un innocent "." (Traduction: j'ai tellement hâte de sortir ce soir!) Sur un téléphone Android, me suis-je ensuite rendue compte, ce choix aurait été plus que contestable: les danseuses deviennent "." (Traduction: tu es un lapin de Playboy en cavale!)

Les Emoji ont un problème d'image. Plutôt que de ne pas apparaître du tout, ce qui serait moins grave, les symboles que vous pensez envoyer peuvent se transformer en de méconnaissables imposteurs lorsqu'ils passent d'un téléphone à l'autre. Je veux dire “classe économique” sur mon iPhone (), vous lisez “chaise Ikea” sur votre Android (). J'ai souhaité à une fille dont c'était l'anniversaire un “feliz cumpleaños .” (Allons danser, jolie petite femme espagnole!) Sur son Android, elle a vu “feliz cumpleaños .” (À L'AIDE, UNE ARAIGNÉE! ÉCRASE-LA!!)

L'Android de Google, l'iOS d'Apple et le logiciel Windows de Microsoft, ainsi que Facebook et Twitter, chacun interprète l'“alphabet” Emoji avec variantes aussi légères que significatives. Ces mains qui applaudissent et ces yeux qui louchent n'ont rien du langage universel que le monde voudrait. Ils sont les outils personnels et les images de marque choisis par des sociétés informatiques, et le résultat est parfois irrégulier et troublant.

Ce phénomène a différents noms: le “fossé Emoji,” la “barrière Emoji” ou, mon préféré, l'“emojungle.” Si le problème pouvait être illustré, ce serait avec l'Emoji au cœur poilu, "" qui apparaît sur les Androids quand un propriétaire d'iPhone envoie un “.” Vous êtes averti(e).

Willem Van Lancker, ancien employé d'Apple ayant dessiné des centaines d'Emoji pour l'iPhone, s'est dit consterné d'apprendre que sur les appareils Android, les équivalents de ses icônes “avaient presque l'air de signifier une émotion différente.”

“C'est très similaire aux langages parlés," a-t-il déclaré. "Le sens se perd avec la traduction.”

Pour comprendre où a commencé cette mauvaise communication, j'ai appelé Mark Davis, co-fondateur du consortium Unicode (qui utilise un comme signature d'e-mail). Unicode, association à but non lucratif visant à standardiser l'apparence du texte dans les programmes informatiques, a décidé en 2008 d'aider les entreprises à réduire les différences d'Emoji en mettant sur pied une liste de 722 symboles formant un unique “alphabet” Emoji (Unicode a annoncé la semaine dernière que 250 symboles seraient encore ajoutés.)

Mark Davis indique que pour créer cette liste de référence, Unicode a d'abord dû assembler trois polices de caractère Emoji créées par les plus grands fournisseurs de télécommunication du Japon -- Softbank, KDDI et DoCoMo, qui ont inventé ces petits symboles colorés. Unicode s'est appliqué à sélectionner une unique illustration et nom de référence pour accompagner chaque Emoji, ainsi "," par exemple, est devenu le symbole pour "visage avec une expression triomphale."

Pour construire cette tour de Babel Emoji, il a fallu faire avec de minuscules images pixelisées et d'énormes variations entre les séries d'Emoji japonais:

Des photos d'un document Unicode datant de 2010, montrant un brouillon des images envisagées par l'organisation dans sa tentative de compiler tous les Emoji japonais dans une seule grande liste. Les colonnes, de gauche à droite, indiquent: le symbole proposé par Unicode, la version de DoCoMo de cet Emoji, la version de KDDI puis celle de Softbank. La dernière colonne sur la droite correspond au symbole d'Apple.

Les trois polices de caractère Emoji ont ensuite été rassemblées en une seule police de caractère, mais celle-ci a finalement ramifié en une demi-douzaine de polices. Les firmes technologiques, qui suivent le guide Unicode à leur discrétion, ont développé leurs propres interprétations de “bonhomme de neige sans neige” ou “visage de persévérance.”

Seul élément de consensus entre les collections d'Emoji: la couleur des visages, d'une teinte que Mark Davis appelle “la nuance de orange à la Homer Simpson/John Boehner.” (Boehner? “C'est comme ça que nous l'appelons en interne parce qu'il a une espèce de coloration orange,” indique Mark David.) Les adeptes d'Emoji ont fait circuler une pétition en faveur d'une plus grande diversité raciale, et Mark Davis a indiqué qu'Unicode incitait les créateurs de logiciels à adopter “une représentation neutre et pas racialement marquée pour les humains.”

Apple’s emoji font -- repurposed by tattoo artists, sculptors and even other tech giants -- has become the most iconic of all the "alphabets," surpassing even Unicode’s standard. Yet a closer inspection reveals a set of symbols shaped by corporate interests.

The first Apple emoji arrived on iPhones sold in Japan, which then operated exclusively on Softbank’s network. Given this alliance, it’s little surprise that Apple’s emoji hew to Softbank’s designs: Like the Japanese carrier's emoji, the Apple version of “woman with bunny ears” features two girls dancing; its “alien monster” resembles a retro, PacMan-esque purple critter; and its “dancer” is a woman, arms outstretched, in a red dress.

Van Lancker said Apple consulted the Japanese originals, but the look of each emoji was ultimately up to its designer. “To be honest,” he said, “when there are hundreds of these to be made, some of them were made in 30 minutes.”

Even in their rush -- or perhaps because of it -- Apple found opportunities to turn emoji into branding opportunities for the mothership. The emoji for “headphones” is Apple EarPods. The two calendar emoji match Apple’s Calendar app. And every smartphone-related emoji pictures a device that evokes the iPhone.

From left to right, emoji designed by Unicode, Apple, Google, Twitter and Microsoft. To make things even more confusing, Android's emoji can vary from version to version, or from phone to phone.

Other companies are guilty of the same, tweaking emoji to make the expressive illustrations stay consistent with whatever they consider their corporate image. Android’s early emoji superimposed emotions onto its green mascot, so feelings of happiness or frustration had to be acted out by the official Android robot (“Please don’t break up with me .”) The emoji for hand gestures offered by Facebook are drawn to resemble the white hand that appears on the social network's omnipresent "like" button. Microsoft’s font manager Si Daniels -- who includes a where Davis had a -- said Microsoft was so keen to have its emoji reflect the look and feel of its smartphone software that the company redesigned its emoji twice in two years. One set of emoji debuted with the Windows 7.5 software, in 2011. The next year, Microsoft scrapped those and started over when it tweaked Windows' appearance and branding.

From left to right, the "alien monster" emoji designed by Unicode, Apple, Google, Twitter and Microsoft.

"When we made our [emoji], we followed the Unicode design quite closely, but also instilled in it the Windows design principles that were emerging at the time: solid colors, stylized, simple without textures or gradients or fake effects," said Daniels.

By comparison, Apple’s iconic emoji are horribly out of fashion. Its icons have shadows, depth and a three-dimensional look that’s a holdover from the Steve Jobs era of skeuomorphic design. Flat illustration free of texture or highlights is now de rigeur. Apple has already abandoned the faux-wood paneling and leather elsewhere in its software, and its emoji could change at any time -- potentially a rude shock for those who’ve come to identify with the brand's symbols. “I kind of hope they don’t [change it]," said Van Lancker.

From left to right, the "dancer" emoji designed by Unicode, Apple, Google, Twitter and Microsoft.

Microsoft is already at work updating theirs. Unicode recently published a chart plotting its emoji illustrations next to each companies’, and Daniels has “font consultants” rethinking some of Microsoft’s designs.

The carousel horse is already a likely contender for a smiley facelift.

“We said just last week, ‘Well, do we need to change the direction of our carousel horse because it’s different from the others?’” -- Microsoft’s faces right, the others all face left -- “Then we were thinking, ‘Well, do carousels all go in the same direction? Are we right and everyone else is wrong?’ And we started doing research into what direction carousels run, and apparently they all do go in the same direction, with one or two notable exceptions,” Daniels said.

Microsoft's carousel, on the right, compared to the same emoji from other tech companies.

Minor as it might seem, a standard direction matters as messages move from one software system to another. Mess that up, and a text about a dog chasing a car could turn into a car running down a dog.

So I asked Daniels: Is Microsoft's carousel wrong?

“It depends on if you’re standing on the carousel looking out or on the ground looking in," he said. "That’s the kind of detail we’d go into for sure.”

Not long after hanging up the phone, I got an email from Daniels.

“I think our carousel horse needs to change direction," he wrote. And then, perhaps for convenience or perhaps to avoid confusion: ":-)”