:D

Adam Sternbergh at New York magazine has an incredible deep dive on emoji, the thread that is holding this country together. If you weren’t already excited, the article also includes the following words:

“But why is the pile of poo smiling?” would be the next logical question. Before we answer that, you may want to buckle yourself in, because we’re about to toboggan down the Smiling Pile of Poo Emoji Wormhole.

I won’t ruin it for you; click through and read the whole thing, including the additional sidebar lessons on How to Speak Emoji (there will be a quiz — — I will text you and if I leave the conversation thinking you are mad at me, you will have failed). But before you go, here is, as you should’ve come to expect with the Hairpin by now, the #DrakeTake:

The rapper Drake recently got an honest-to-God tattoo of an emoji that, depending on whom you ask, means either “praying hands” or “high five”. (Drake says praying hands. “I pity the fool who high-fives in 2014,” he clarified via Instagram.)

No further questions.