Local Man Struggles to Find an Emoticon to Express his Self-Loathing

Roscoe Village resident Rob Burkowitz spent Tuesday night scouring the internet for a round, graphical image to effectively depict his inward angst and hate.

“I was watching ‘Nights in Rodanthe’ with my mom, caught between hating myself for crying when Richard Gere realizes he can love again and hating myself more for having a boner,” said Burkowitz, “When I thought this feeling must be captured somehow.”

The search for the perfect emoticon to post on his personal blog, GChat messages, and MySpace, Facebook and Twitter accounts followed a failed suicide attempt earlier in the week.

“Yeah, I came really close to taking my life the other night,” said Burkowitz staring at the floor while rubbing the back of his neck. “It was pretty intense; I almost didn’t make it. I think my social networks are still reeling.”

The incident Burkowitz described began with a status update reading “My soul is blackened by this commercialized society. Leaving this desolate existence behind, not that you’d care …” and ended with approximately four Children’s Tylenol pills. Facebook posts after the self-reported suicide included, “U K?”, “What commercial? I  love commercials with the Slowkis!!!  Text me!”, “Dante’s Inferno – Pg. 93” and “Fag.”

Burkowitz survived the low dosage of infant painkillers and came out “stronger and totally more centered” with a new purpose in his pathetic life – to find a textual portrayal of his anger and veiled feelings of inadequacy.

“I went through various punctuation marks, pain, personal hardships and Photoshop enhancements to come to my final product. It was very emotional, or emoticonal to be more accurate and relatable to my web-based community.”

Burkowitz finally settled on an emoticon that conveys no one understands him while maintaining he doesn’t deserve to be alive.

“The eyes say ‘Why don’t you love me?’ while the mouth says ‘Oh, I know why. - because I’m an overweight loser who lives in his mother’s basement and has never had intercourse,’” said Burkowitz. "The bloody wrists are pretty self explanatory."

He believed that this illustration of unhappiness will startle friends and online acquaintances and make them realize what a unique, tortured soul he is and how grateful they are to know him.

“Everyone saw how  and un- :-) , :-[ and : S I was, and they were completely :-0,” said Burkowitz in a follow-up text interview. "It really made me feel better about myself. So now I’m working on a self acceptance emoticon. I’m guessing there will be a lot of asterisks and right parentheses. We’ll see how it goes.”