“Where would we be without emoticons, emoji, and sideways winky faces typed out of punctuation marks?” Barry Blitt, the artist behind this week’s cover, says. “Seriously, how does anyone understand anything that’s written with only letters?” he continues. “I feel sorry for the alphabet. I’m waiting for the first original novel to be composed solely with emoticons. Oh, and Hillary Clinton.”
Here are a few New Yorker covers that have documented new technologies over the decades.