CURRENTS
<3
Five VasesThree poems called Love and one called Matador
Notes on Red Heart Emoji
Obscene Gaping Hole: A Review of Catherine Breillat’s Romance
Five works by Chloe Rees
horizontal business after e.e. cummings
Five exerpts from praxinscope
Okul Güzeli
Love In Chelsea
Tapestry Trials: An Interview with Rusty Janardan on Weaving
Memory of you, kiss me new in the spring pool It was pink, Yellow
Notes on Red Heart Emojiby Jill Yum
❤(Red Heart Emoji) is Kim Kardashian’s 4th most used heart emoticon on Instagram. In a January 2024 collab post, @kardashian_data_koalition and @kardashian_kolloquium identified 10 use cases of ❤on @kimkardashian. On emojistats.org, ❤is the emoji keyboard app’s 2nd most popular emoji, typed 286,014,322 times (as of 10:40am, Feburary 13, 2024) and second only to 😂(Crying Laughing Emoji)
On Instagram, Twitter, and Tiktok the ❤has been remade into a “like,” or that thing you might be be outed for over dinner with your roommates: “I saw you liked that Instagram reel that went like when you love your partner less than they love you.” And you might protest, “That guy was being ironic! That’s like this bit that he does! I think I only liked that by accident!” The like, unlike ❤, can be dismissed and denied, as a slip of the finger. One big shiny #FF0000-red ❤conveys the intention and seriousness the “like” is unwilling to commit to.
The ❤can be found on the emoji keyboard, or it can be made as it was before 2010, by typing out less than 3 or “<3.” To craft a ❤on the keyboard with your fingers is to sit in that less than 3 for a moment. ❤is often strung together with other emojis, sometimes with similar vibes: ❤😻😍 or ❤🧡💛💚💙💜🤍or ❤💯💸🤑😈. Someone’s cat died and the comments look like “I’m so sorry ❤❤❤🕊.” Or your friend just broke up with her long distance lover of 4 months and she just posted an ultra glam pic: “❤😻😍🔥🔥🔥.” Or you have a new beau who you’re soft-launching via Instagram bio: “❤🔒.” Or something tragic (on a global scale) has just occured: “Donatella VERSACE💜.”
I texted this to a friend after smelling a bergamot based perfume in a store. I’m not good at identifying smells but my friend Margot is. I think I’ve told her this: she has the discerning smell of a pregnant lady or a doberman. A few years ago, when she was still living in New York, she told me about a smell that was “literally everywhere.” It was winter so we decided to stop into the SOHO Aritzia to pass our fingers over racks of wool coats. The moment we opened the doors, there it was. We spent the rest of the weekend sniffing around the city, trying to identify “the smell.” A few months later, she texted me: “It’s Glossier You.”
These texts are from when my roommate was sick. I wish we called that flu that goes around around week 3 of school something like “Fresher’s flu” like they do in the UK but we only get to say “that thing that’s going around.” There’s something appealing about knowing where that thing came from. I know some schools call it the “Frat Flu” but that’s unchic for obvious reasons. I think my sophomore year I actually had the “Frat Flu” because I wanted to have someone to blame and I had strapped on my hot pink bikini top for the tropical theme party the weekend prior. Feverish and guilty, I sent this text to my roommate because everyone knew I gave her the “Frat Flu.”
Last summer I drank the tap water in Portugal and I ended up stretched out on the airport tarmac. A young woman fed me crackers and water until I could sit up. “I know I don’t look like a doctor but I am,” she said. I really should have laid down but this was my first time fainting so I didn’t know that the cold sweat on my face, stumbling speech, and darkened vision meant I was going to faint. I spent a few beautiful days stretched out on the beach under the sun, sweating and crying through stabbing stomach pains.
I send messages to my Korean speaking grandmother through English to Korean Google Translate. I often get nervous that I’ve made an embarrassing mistake and end up texting her in English. I think this time I decided she would understand enough. On my birthday she will always send me a card that says something like “Happy Birthday Grandmother” or “To my loving Grandmother” in cursive lettering on the outside. Every year, I pull the card out of the envelope and turn to my mom for her to translate the Korean note handwritten on a piece of notepaper and folded into the empty card.
On New Year’s Day, my high school friends and I drive down the shore to jump into the ocean. On the way, we pick up Wawa hoagies to feel like we’re home again. I never want to jump in the ocean because it’s usually like 35 degrees out and that’s not an idea I would have myself. Except my friend, without fail, will always say “okay I’ll just go by myself,” which is an impossible situation to put everyone else in. So we all end up jumping in the ocean in the 36 degree weather and running back to the car where our Wawa hoagies await us. Last year, we were all in different places for New Years so we couldn’t make our annual Jersey Shore trip. Despite flooding the group chat with ≈s, our failure to jump in the ocean cursed us. We all decided anything bad that happened in 2023 was because of it.
In these texts, the ❤ Red Heart Emoji often signifies love for a friend (or your grandmother, a smell, or a food). Sometimes it dillutes the emotional weight of a text. It can also change the tone of a text entirely. “fuck you” is a much scarier text to receive than “fuck you ❤.” The ❤is also often ironic, like a flippant “love ya,” inverting the sincerity of an “I love you.” The ❤Red Heart Emoji, in these texts and on the internet, ❤may deride love itself, or the commitment and sincerity that a love heart may inscribe.