The Rise Of Emoji

Exploring the phenomenal success of those little smiley faces.
When the Unicode Consortium was founded in 1991, its original intention was to create universally acceptable methods of computer usage. Its open source software has been crucial in standardising the internet, computer programs and search engines alike. However, it is Unicode’s long-standing involvement with alphanumeric characters and symbols that has inadvertently positioned it as the global arbiter of the fast-growing (and often baffling) world of emoji.
For the uninitiated, emoji is the modern-day term applied to emoticons. A mashup of emotion and icon, these graphical symbols became well known for their depictions of facial expressions like 😉 and :’-( Even the less IT-savvy readers of this blog will recognise these as describing the acts of winking and crying respectively. Emoji take the graphical depictions of objects or emotions one step further than emoticons by using bespoke images to represent everything from animals to weather conditions.
As with so much modern-day animated content, the origins of emoji lie in Japan. With a name that combines Japanese words for ‘picture’ and ‘character’, emoji evolved from the emoticon-style characters found in the Dingbats font family. They also drew heavily on Manga cartoons, where lightning bolts indicated shock and lightbulbs depicted inspiration. By creating an instantly recognizable graphic, an emoji acts as visual shorthand – a thousand words are expressed in one compact image.
What couldn’t have been predicted a decade ago was how emoji (which have the same singular and plural titles) would expand to encompass 1,200 official graphics and thousands of platform-specific ones. Given their popularity with teenagers, it’s perhaps unsurprising that emotions and clothes/accessories are represented prominently, while 67 new characters are being considered by the Unicode Consortium for possible introduction next year. These include a salad bowl, a dolphin, and what can only be described as a dribbling face.
The popularity of emoji is inextricably linked with the modern-day phenomena of instant messaging and social media. Mobile phone text messages can often only cope with alphanumeric characters and basic symbols, and network providers frequently charge for messages containing graphics, whereas platforms like the all-conquering WhatsApp are fully compatible with emoji and don’t levy fees for their use. Indeed, the biggest conflict currently involves rival platforms – Apple’s iOS9 update includes emoji that Android users can’t yet view on their devices. A broken graphic is displayed as a tall, thin rectangular box on the recipient device – another nod to the Dingbats font of yesteryear.
Even in the age of smartphones and social media, it’s doubtful that emoji would ever have become successful if they weren’t so cute. There is no question that they are aimed at teenagers and young adults, although their appeal has spread far beyond its original target audience. In this respect, emoji mirror the social media platforms that host them. While some emoji are freely available in the public domain, many require purchase; there are no official figures on the global emoji market’s value, but these icons are cheap to produce and hugely popular among the world’s two billion smartphone users. Instagram report that almost half of comments and captions on their platforms now contain at least one emoji, many of which are bought as packs from app stores.
To fully understand what a phenomenon this has become, consider the fact that there is a World Emoji Day every July 17th. Sony Pictures is developing an animated feature film about emoji, while the emojipedia.org website is a dedicated search engine whose most popular categories include “reversed hand with middle finger extended”. Coca-Cola recently paid to create a dedicated emoji on Twitter, and one enterprising entrepreneur has invented an emoji to promote his Kickstarter campaign. It almost goes without saying that the new Star Wars film has inspired a series of characters, and there are even tentative plans to translate the Bible into emoji. The loaves and fishes parable would be easy to depict, though it’s hard to imagine fully conveying the suffering of Job via sad faces.
What’s your favorite emoji? Tweet us with yours @VPSNET.