Entertainment

Ryan Phillippe Gives the Internet a Thumbs Down

by Kadeen Griffiths

Since the Internet more or less replaced the need for any human being to actually set foot outside their house if they don't want to, it has also opened us up to an entirely new problem with human interaction. Before, our problem was hoping that we looked okay and didn't have something caught in our teeth and didn't trip in front of our crush. Now we worry about typing something that's misinterpreted because we struck the wrong tone. Being the innovative creatures that we are, that problem has largely been solved by the invention of emojis, but Ryan Phillippe took to Twitter to declare that they aren't as multipurpose as we think.

On the surface, that sounds ridiculous. With the number of different kinds of emojis there are, how could there be one that doesn't capture any and every individual feeling that a person might have? We learned how to make a dancing Kirby out of emojis, for Pete's sake, and you're telling me there isn't one for "boo"? What emoji do you use when you disapprove of something so completely that you feel the need to cup your hands around your mouth and shout your dissatisfaction with one word? We have a word for it, so why not an emoji?

Fan reactions ranged from the helpful:

To the confused:

To the sympathetic:

Of course, then there's the question of what exactly Phillippe was actually talking about. He tweeted this question on Sunday morning, when the night before he was seen doing very little more than hanging around the Chateau Marmont with his girlfriend, Paulina Slagter. What was he booing? The hotel? The paparazzi? His girlfriend? The inventor of emojis?

Phillippe may have worried that no one does a thumbs down sign in real life, but, to be fair, no one really says "boo" in real life either, unless they're playing ghost with an infant or talking about Monsters, Inc. He'd be better off sticking with the dancing Kirby.