Hillary Clinton’s emails have revealed a personal peccadillo the public might not otherwise have learned about: She is, at times, technologically challenged.
There was that time with Clinton’s faxes, when in multiple email exchanges with her aide Huma Abedin she struggled to get a fax machine to work. Then there was the iPad incident, when she asked her aide Phillipe Reines if he could show her how to use the new Apple product during a flight to Kiev. Now, we have the emoji incident of 2012, revealed in the latest batch of Clinton emails released to the public on Friday. In an exchange with Reines that dates to April of that year, Clinton asked him how to write “smiley faces” on her new Blackberry.
“Here’s my question: on this new berry can I get smiley faces?” Clinton asked.
Reines responded at length, and with the sincerity of an aide to the world’s top diplomat.
For email, no, I don’t think so – you need to type them out manually like :) for happy, or :-I I if you want to express anger at my tardiness.
For text messaging, the chart might be there in the lower right, next to where you type the message.
If it’s not, I THINK that if you type :) it MIGHT automatically convert it into a symbol. Try it.
The State Department is releasing Clinton’s emails in large batches to the public, a process that has been ongoing since it was discovered that she used a private email server during her time as Secretary of State.
Read more: Emails Offer Glimpse Into Hillary Clinton’s Private Side
More Must-Reads from TIME
- Breaking Down the 2024 Election Calendar
- How Nayib Bukele’s ‘Iron Fist’ Has Transformed El Salvador
- What if Ultra-Processed Foods Aren’t as Bad as You Think?
- How Ukraine Beat Russia in the Battle of the Black Sea
- Long COVID Looks Different in Kids
- How Project 2025 Would Jeopardize Americans’ Health
- What a $129 Frying Pan Says About America’s Eating Habits
- The 32 Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2024
Contact us at letters@time.com