19 Emoji T-Shirts That Are Something to Smile About

I’ve seen lots of strange things in my life, but to see that Sir Patrick Stewart, knighted Shakespearean actor, best Star Trek captain (IMHO) and human rights advocate is now playing… poop, is the strangest thing yet. Yes, Picard is the voice of the poop emoticon in this summer’s The Emoji Movie. I hope he didn’t think this was the part he was born to play. Granted, he’s one of many actors voicing the rolls of these pixel expressions, but… he’s playing poop.

OK, before I go on talking about the movie, I have to take a moment here and remind the world that we have an emoticon for poop. I know it’s been there and been popular for quite a while, but… how did it come to this? Using images of bodily waste in our texts, e-mails and social media posts.

I’m old enough to remember when emoticons were just simple combinations of characters on your keyboard. The first time somebody sent me a smile: :) I had to tilt my head to make it out. And boy, wasn’t that the coolest thing ever a colon and an end parenthesis end up making a cute little smiley face. (And somehow it always comes back to colons.)

But wait! There were more. If you said something silly, you could stick your tongue out just as easily: :P. Or act surprised: :-o. Then they became more complicated. There were so many, I couldn’t keep up. All I could say was: “I dunno!” ¯(º_o)/¯

As cel phones grew in popularity, so did emoticons. They became more commonly referred to as emojis. We went from about twenty basic ones to hundreds. Not only does your phone come with so many you couldn’t possibly use them all, there are tons of expansion packs in all styles. They’ve gone beyond smily faces to animals, food, places and almost anything to represent almost anything you can imagine. And, of course, poop.

I’ve had text conversations with friends that were almost all emojis. Pretty soon we won’t need words anymore. There was a Doctor Who episode where people’s emotions were symbolized by emojis on their back, and if they turned sad, well, they were in lots of trouble. I don’t find it too tough to imagine a future where emojis are like a second language.

But hey, I wanted to talk about The Emoji Movie that’s coming out this summer, didn’t I? First off, whoever came up with the idea is brilliant. Take something that we’re all familiar with and animate it on the big screen.

Looks like that’s the theme of the movie as well, that while most emojis are stuck with one emotion, this one emoji, Gene, has more than one emotion/expression. Sounds like a fun fish out of water story. I can’t wait to hear all the references to the way we use emojis will be hilarious.

At the least, The Emoji Move is sure to make us smile. :) :-) :-P

Put a smile on your or your friends’ faces with these cool emoji t-shirts. They’re sure to turn that :( upside down!