The Emoji That Started a Feud

It started with a single emoji. Bridie had texted the group chat a photo of the cake she'd made for her little brother's birthday. Saskia had replied with nothing but a skull emoji.

Semuanya bermula dari satu emoji. Bridie mengirim ke grup obrolan foto kue yang ia buat untuk ulang tahun adik kecilnya. Saskia membalas hanya dengan emoji tengkorak.

Bridie stared at it for a long moment, genuinely unsure what it meant. Did the cake look bad? Was Saskia joking? Was this some new meaning of the skull emoji that she simply hadn't learned yet?

Bridie menatapnya lama sekali, sungguh tak yakin apa maksudnya. Apakah kuenya tampak jelek? Apakah Saskia bercanda? Apakah ini makna baru emoji tengkorak yang belum ia pelajari?

She decided, after some deliberation, that it meant the cake looked terrible, and she was not going to let that slide.

Setelah menimbang-nimbang, ia memutuskan bahwa itu berarti kuenya tampak mengerikan, dan ia tidak akan membiarkannya begitu saja.

"Wow," Bridie typed. "Thanks for the support."

"Wah," ketik Bridie. "Makasih dukungannya."

"What?" Saskia replied, genuinely confused. "The skull means it's iconic. It's a compliment. I'm dying, it's so good."

"Apa?" balas Saskia, benar-benar bingung. "Tengkorak itu artinya keren banget. Itu pujian. Aku sampai mati saking bagusnya."

"That is not what I thought it meant," Bridie admitted, though by then Cormac had already jumped into the conversation with his own theory.

"Bukan itu yang kukira artinya," Bridie mengaku, walau saat itu Cormac sudah ikut nimbrung dengan teorinya sendiri.

"I always thought it meant something was actually bad," Cormac typed. "Like, dead on arrival. This has been a whole misunderstanding for years, apparently."

"Aku selalu mengira artinya sesuatu itu benar-benar jelek," ketik Cormac. "Kayak, mati sebelum sempat dinikmati. Ternyata ini salah paham yang sudah bertahun-tahun."

What followed was three days of increasingly detailed debate, with screenshots of definitions pulled from different corners of the internet. At least one message insisted, quite seriously, that emoji meanings should be regulated by an actual committee.

Yang terjadi kemudian adalah tiga hari perdebatan yang makin rinci, dengan tangkapan layar definisi dari berbagai sudut internet. Setidaknya satu pesan dengan sungguh-sungguh menegaskan bahwa makna emoji seharusnya diatur oleh sebuah komite resmi.

Bridie polled her entire grade. The results were split almost exactly down the middle, which somehow made everyone more confident in their own interpretation rather than less.

Bridie mengadakan jajak pendapat di seluruh angkatannya. Hasilnya terbagi hampir tepat di tengah, yang entah bagaimana membuat semua orang makin yakin pada tafsirannya masing-masing, bukan makin ragu.

By Thursday, the group chat had been renamed twice: first to "Skull Emoji Court," then to "Skull Emoji Supreme Court." Cormac appointed himself Chief Justice, for reasons nobody had actually agreed to.

Pada hari Kamis, nama grup obrolan itu sudah diganti dua kali: pertama menjadi "Pengadilan Emoji Tengkorak", lalu "Mahkamah Agung Emoji Tengkorak". Cormac mengangkat dirinya sendiri menjadi Ketua Mahkamah, dengan alasan yang tak pernah disetujui siapa pun.

"This is genuinely the dumbest argument we've ever had," Saskia typed, "and I include the sixth-grade argument about whether cereal is a soup."

"Ini benar-benar debat paling konyol yang pernah kita lakukan," ketik Saskia, "dan itu termasuk debat kelas enam soal apakah sereal itu sup."

"That argument," Cormac replied immediately, "was extremely valid, and I stand by my position."

"Debat itu," balas Cormac seketika, "sangat sah, dan aku tetap pada pendirianku."

Bridie, scrolling back through three days of messages, realized she couldn't actually remember why she had been upset in the first place. She sent a single message to end it: a skull emoji, followed by the word "truce."

Bridie, yang menggulir kembali tiga hari pesan, menyadari bahwa ia sama sekali tak ingat mengapa awalnya ia marah. Ia mengirim satu pesan untuk mengakhirinya: emoji tengkorak, diikuti kata "gencatan senjata".

Nobody could agree on what that combination meant either, but for once, everyone decided to just let it go.

Tak seorang pun bisa sepakat soal arti kombinasi itu juga, tetapi untuk sekali ini, semua orang memutuskan untuk melupakannya saja.