How to Not Look Old When You Talk about Your Phone

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When I read Distance Learning & Online Moderation at Oxford University, they were called emoticons, which is what we in the West called the little typed illustrations that elicit the emotions we intended to communicate to the reader (emotion + icons > emoticons). As you’ll surely recognize, there’s :D and ;-), for example. But, these Latin glyphs had to be read sideways. Sigh.

Then, Shigetaka Kurita developed emojis for Japanese users. The term emoji emerged from “e” for picture and “moji” for character. Inspired in part by manga art, the adorable 12 x 12 pixel renderings caught on. Apple quietly slid the special keyboard onto their first launch of the famed handheld devices via Unicode.🤳 Gladly found by Westerners, these little "Easter eggs" were a playful treat for early adopters to the iPhone.

So, think about that for a moment. Not only did the UX of our mobile devices change overnight with the Apple iPhone coming onto the market, what with touching only thumbnails instead of buttons, but it also changed our perception of keyboards that could be stacked layers deep and were capable of expressing even specific emotions with the reader. 🤗📲!

The crowd-pleasing characters were popular enough to change style guides and language usage in newspapers of record. Reaching celebrity status, it was in November 2015 that an emoji, "Face with Tears of Joy" 😂 , made headlines when it rocked the Oxford English Dictionaries as Word of the Year.

So go ahead, enjoy your emojis. Use the colorful little rascals to better convey your meaning. But just remember, don't say, "emoticons." It makes you look old. ;-)

Cover Image by Domingo Alverez for Unsplash

List of emoticons - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emoticons

Wang, Yanan. "For the First Time Ever an Emoji is Crowned Oxford English Dictionaries Word of the Year." The Washington Post.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/11/17/for-first-time-ever-an-emoji-is-crowned-oxford-dictionaries-word-of-the-year/

Grannan, C.. "What’s the Difference Between Emoji and Emoticons?." Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/story/whats-the-difference-between-emoji-and-emoticons

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7 comments
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Nice job ... I didn't know where the emoji's came from. I often still create them using the characters instead of the icons. Guess that sort of makes me look old too LOL

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See how entertaining it can be to have a design geek as a friend? I'm chock full of stuff like this!!

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But just remember, don't say, "emoticons." It makes you look old. ;-)

LOL. I had forgotten all about those early days of emoticons. I'm glad that the name has shifted to emojis. It seems like a warmer and friendlier name in comparison to emoticons.

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I had no idea of the history of emojis. This is a fabulous article! And word of the year? Wow. Thank you for the education!

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