I ❤️ you. This confession is quite audacious — indeed, I may hardly know you beyond your proclivity for consuming great journalism. Nonetheless, I hope my love may entice you to continue reading because I find such an admission remarkable, despite its forward attitude.
There are multiple layers of meaning intuited in a statement like “I ❤️ you.” First, this simple emoji is construed to act as a verb — it relates myself to you through the action of an object. That object is, apparently, a heart, although such a depiction might bewilder an anatomist; the connection between the emoji and the one beating in our chests is implicitly communicated. Finally, that a heart intimates love at all is a crucial revelation unto itself.
My abuse of heart symbolism is a recent innovation in written communication, rooted in Milton Glaser’s 1970s ‘I ❤️ NY’ campaign that prototyped ‘I ❤️ [blank]’ statements. The invention of emojis solidified the heart as a legitimate symbol for written speech, with the first set of emojis including five heart symbols back in 1999. Usage of the ❤️ has continued to proliferate, as we can now use it as emphasis or a reaction on its own. Our hearts are affixed to the world around us like never before. Why bother with language? We can offer up an even more powerful image: our organs.
That such a symbol even resembles a real heart is not abundantly clear. Contrary to popular belief, there is a scientific basis to our simplified pictography. The simultaneous visualizations of the right and left coronary trees closely mirror a simplified heart, which was likely determined via a plaster-molding procedure performed in antiquity. Thus, the heart symbol could be the actual appearance of our plasticized, lifeless hearts, now less painfully proffered in visual form.
A dominant historical perspective links the modern heart to silphium seed pods, an extinct fennel popularly used as a contraceptive. Ancient Cyrene’s wealth in silphium led them to print it on their coins, transforming the heart into a currency requisite to sexual pleasure.
At its basest, the heart’s symmetrical curves could just idealize breasts and bottoms, caricaturing physical allure. But are hearts just a means to sex? Marguerite Marie, the patron saint of devotees of the Sacred Heart, would decry such blasphemy, as she perceived that Christ’s Sacred Heart was the “living fountain of his flames.” Her usage of the modern heart symbol, intended to urge the devout to feed Christ’s flame with their devotion, remained prominent in Catholic symbolism and continued in Protestant symbolism due to religious reformer Martin Luther’s use of the heart in his personal seal.
Pious or sensual, hearts are still inextricably tied to love in its purest form. Yet most of the feelings associated with love are actually caused by our cognitive reward circuits that release serotonin, oxytocin and vasopressin, creating our experience of passionate and ‘compassionate’ love. Love is, apparently, a mental game, despite Aristotle’s assertions otherwise.
However, the experience of love can still profoundly shake our hearts like “wind on the mountain, troubling the oak-trees,” as the Greek poet Sappho wrote. Our hearts beat always, but love spurs them on. Our essential life force, the coursing of blood through our veins, becomes a product of love and thus represents it.
Perhaps we should reflect on the sincerity of presenting our hearts so freely. In doing so, we offer up our mortality, our living humanity embodied, our love. My ❤️ is precious, so it’s a gift all the more. Love yourself first — your heart is yours to keep.
