How we talk now: it’s been emojinal
A DECADE OF HEART EYES AND AUBERGINES
CAN you remember the world before emoji? Before every online message was peppered with cute emoticons, signifying hilarity with the crying laughing face, or telling someone you loved them with the heart eyes character?
Today marks World Emoji Day, so decided because the date on the calendar emoji shows July 17. Not only that, but 2020 marks a decade of the official emoji roster as 2010 was when the Unicode Consortium decided to codify emoji, giving them standards and scope in every coding and linguistic language in the world.
This is how emojis have changed the way we communicate over a decade.
2010: Official emoji
Emoji were officially launched in Japan in 1999 with the original black and white icon set something you would find peppered across early internet forums. However, in 2010, the characters were recognised by the Unicode Consortium which created the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee to ensure standards for the characters with the help of the public. Wired says this was “the beginning of legitimising emoji as a form of communication”. Notable additions included the cat with heart eyes, which soon became part of the social media lexicon.
2011: Emoji comes to iPhone
The iOS 5 update for 2011 included an official emoji keyboard for the first time (though it didn’t come to Android until 2013).
2013: Dictionary inclusion
By this point, communicating in emoji has spilled over into everyday chats, so much so that the word “emoji” is added to the Oxford English Dictionaries, with the definition: “A small digital image or icon used to express an idea, emotion, etc.”
2014: The first World Emoji Day
The focus of this year’s update was representation. For the first time, skin tones were included so people could customise their characters to the skin tone they felt best represented them — starting the ball rolling on the diverse characters we have on our keyboard today.
2015: Diverse emoji and banning the aubergine
Emoji became a more diverse virtual language in 2015, with this year’s update adding five new skin tones and a set of same-sex couples to the characters. It’s also when people started to understand the double-meanings behind certain icons. Instagram blocked the use of the aubergine emoji for a time on account of the crucial role it plays in sexting lexicon (though the ban was later removed).
2016: The end of the gun emoji
As the aubergine emoji demonstrated, emoji can communicate more than one message. In 2015, a 12-year-old from Virginia was charged with threatening her school after she posted a message on Instagram including the gun, bomb and knife emojis. Apple replaces the gun emoji with a water pistol in 2016 following a series of high-profile shootings in the US. Other platforms followed suit and by 2018 there were no more gun emojis.
2017: The Emoji Movie
Emoji officially cemented its pop culture status with The Emoji Movie featuring the likes of James Corden, Maya Rudolph, Christina Aguilera and Patrick Stewart — who played the poo emoji, obviously. It grossed $217 million worldwide and won four Golden Raspberry Awards including for worst picture and worst screenplay. The Emoji Movie 2: The Digital Part is in the works.
2018: Bagelgate
There are strong opinions about how different emoji look. In 2017, there was the Android Burger emoji drama: Google’s version had cheese underneath the burger, whereas on Apple’s version the slice appeared on the top. Google CEO Sundar Pichai tweeted he was dropping everything he was working on to sort it out. Still, this was simply a warm-up for Bagelgate in 2018. Apple included a brand new bagel icon in its iOS 12 update, though it was swiftly judged inadequate by fans — it lacked a filling and was beige and un-appetising in colour. The critics won — the bagel design was improved.
2019: Emoji Mashup bot
Dexterous emoji users can combine a string of characters to communicate meaning that goes beyond words. Teenage developer Louan Bengmah — an artist of the form — took this a step further and created a Twitter bot account that produces randomised combinations of two different emoji every hour. The account now has over 300,000 followers, whilst iPhone users can send them as free iMessage stickers.
2020: The rise of the face mask and coronavirus effects
2020’s World Emoji Day will unveil the most-used emoji of the year. The four in the running include the black fist for Black Lives Matter, the face mask emoji, the virus and the flame. 2020’s new emoji will include a transgender flag and a woman in a tuxedo. Moreover, coronavirus has had an impact on the icons far beyond just the characters we’re using: there’ll be no 2021 release as Covid-19 has affected Unicode’s normal schedule of getting the new set approved. Thanks, virus.