Communicating in the universal language: The Emoji way!

Consultivo Blog |  People Advisory

In this digital era where people spend most of their time on social media apps or using digital devices, communications have taken a giant leap forward. 

The use of emojis has completely changed how we used to converse online.

 

From signs, pictures, symbols, sounds to emojis, human communications have come a long way.

The use of these emoji characters has spread like wildfire amongst the masses both young and old.

This new tool of communication has risen in such a way that it now has an undeniable omnipresence in the digital world.

A day dedicated globally just for Emojis!

Did you know Jeremy Burge – the founder of Emojipedia is credited with the creation of World Emoji Day on July 17th 2014? Since then, it has been celebrated every year on this date globally.

So who is actually responsible for this game-changer of a creation?

It was Japanese techie, Shigetaka Kurita who first created emojis in 1999. He cited his inspiration from various expressions of people that he observed in his city. It was he who coined the word ‘emoji’ as per the Japanese meaning ‘e’– ‘picture’, ‘moji’ – ‘character’.

Making a speedy headway into our lives..

As per the latest data, a whooping 92% of online users use emojis as part of their conversations out of which 78% are women and 60% are men. Looking at these figures, we can say that is quite an astronomical rise.

Let’s chronicle its rise, shall we!

2000

After the development of emojis in 1999, the Japanese included the character as part of the newly developed I-mode mobile internet platform, which at that time was an introduction to the World Wide Web for a majority of the Japanese population.

2011

Apple officially included emojis as part of its iOS 5 release. It proved to be a game-changer as it wasn’t long after that other Mobile OS players too started following the trend.

2012

Apple introduced emojis representing the LGBT community in its latest iOS release.

2013

Google included emoji support to its OS by making it an integral part of the Google keyboard app. This new feature put Android users on par with other OS users.

2014

Apple included emojis depicting African-American faces with a focus on diversity. The same year, the first “World Emoji Day” was celebrated on July 17th.

2015

Apple introduced the option for selecting the specific skin tone for emojis. In the same year, London Oxford Dictionaries announced the emoji, referred to as ‘Face with Tears Of Joy’ as word of the year.

2016

Apple included more than 100 new emojis, all focussed on promoting gender diversity in its iOS 10 release.

2017

“The Emoji Movie” was released worldwide. It was a 3-D computer animated film that captured the world of emojis.

Creating an extra edge…

In this digital era where people spend most of their time on social media apps or using digital devices, communications have taken a giant leap forward. The use of emojis has completely changed how we used to converse online. Nowadays, even brands are using it as a personalised way of interacting with their customer base. It also helps them to stand out in terms of marketing. Brands like Pepsi, Disney, Domino’s Pizza, etc. are some examples. In some countries, Domino’s now lets you order pizza by using emoji. Chevrolet put out a whole press release in emoji, inviting people to decode it. Goldman Sachs tweeted completely in emoji to highlight a research report on millennials.

Sports brands are also not far behind!

During this year’s IPL, The Mumbai Indians franchise punished three of its players by making them wear emoji kits for missing gym sessions. The video was put up on the Mumbai Indians Facebook page which went viral. Back in 2016, The Euro soccer tournament had partnered with Twitter to add a cup emoji everytime a user shared the hashtag #Euro2016 and country flags when sharing hashtags with team abbreviations

Goes down well? Not always!

Sometimes the use of emojis in certain cases hasn’t been popular. In one such instance in 2015, an edition of the newspaper USA Today tried using emojis on its first page. There was an article with the headline “US Hero of French train attack stabbed” with a crying emoji printed next to it. This caused huge public outrage much to the embarrassment of the company. Even in our everyday lives, we should be careful while communicating through emojis. Though they are quite an interesting way of communicating our thoughts & expressions, it might now always go down well with people as they might perceive & interpret it in different ways. So, use them smartly as not to offend anybody.

Worth a thousand words?

Emojis have made communications easier. It adds a unique visual expression or a body language that many can relate with more than verbal or written interactions.

Don’t you agree?

It is the new-age modern way of communication.

It can be considered as an universal language that allows people from various cultures to interact with each other. One doesn’t need a written/verbal language but just a facial expression is enough. Infact, nowadays, people prefer to express their thoughts & emotions through emojis rather than words.

Well, it’s a well-known fact that a picture is worth a thousand words. And emojis can save that many characters to get the message across. What do you think?

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Category:  Blog

Tags: People Advisory

Akash Nambiar

Akash Nambiar

Creative Intern, Consultivo

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