Cher shares why she loves emojis: they’re “modern-day hieroglyphs”

If you follow Cher on Twitter, you already know that this is a fairly representative tweet:

SOME????’s ????????TWT ABOUT GIVING UP,NOT BEING ????????ENOUGH 2 GO ON????
IT HAPPENS 2US ALL????GOTTA FIND SOME1/THING,U????&REACH UP,REACH OUT, NEVER GIVE UP????INO

— Cher (@cher) September 11, 2016

The performer’s emoji-heavy approach to the medium is so idiosyncratic that it even garnered a New York Times think-piece—which Cher found insulting:

If U don’t get Reaction 2 NYT.Took Strength(Such FEAR)2Start 2twt,B made fun of& CONTINUE.True Havent Grammar,punctuation,&140 Is 2Little.????????

— Cher (@cher) January 31, 2016

Backstage at the Fast Company Innovation Festival, Cher explained to me why she’s gravitated toward emojis. “I’m terribly dyslexic,” she said, “so emojis came so easily to me because I kind of think of them as modern-day hieroglyphs“—tools for visualizing emotion.

Later, she told the audience how much dyslexia had affected her growing up. “Poverty and dyslexia really taught me what it’s like to have shame for something beyond your control.”RB