Have you ever felt something that is difficult to express such as wanting to utter something but you cannot find the right words to say? What is your current mood? Do you feel happy, sad, or angry right now? A Japanese man named Shigetaka Kurita created a program called “Emoji” which can express feelings through digital images that display objects, shapes, or even show facial expressions that can be sent using electronic devices. Did you know that the developers of this program gain millions of subscribers every year? To gain more knowledge about Emoji, let us first go through its history, why it was created, how its characters developed, as well as how its popularity increased.
At the end of the 20th century, Japanese cellphone users start …show more content…
The Emoji that netizens use nowadays is different from what early users of this program use. This program has changed a lot, from a boring picture to a lively and pleasing digital image. From merely one hundred fifty twelve-pixel by twelve-pixel characters to more than one thousand, three hundred characters. Before, the characters’ only theme is just pure human emotions but now, not only human emotions but also other things such as animals, food and drinks, celebrations, human activities, and many more. They made a modern digital image of these things. According to Sternbergh (2014), these characters were inspired by some of the creator’s childhood experiences, including kanji, Japanese borrowed characters from written Chinese, and manga which are Japanese comic books. Robb (2014) asserts that the idea behind Emoji is actually quite old because according to her, the pictographic hieroglyphs and cuneiform inscriptions from Mesopotamia was our earliest form of writing which was developed around five thousand years ago and Emoji is slightly similar to how it was used. However, Ben Zimmer, an American linguist, has a different view of the development of Emoji. He thinks these emoticons may help us include again in our current language something that we have lost. For him, Emoji is not a threat to written language, rather an enrichment because written language limits individuals in expressing their emotions, the language has …show more content…
At first, the developers of this program simply tried if it can catch the attention of Japanese teenagers. It indeed caught these teenagers’ attention but something more exhilarating happened, its popularity suddenly increased not only in Japan but also in different countries around the world throughout their stay in the industry. As of now, this program attracted several people, not only teenagers but also netizens and people that use smartphones. The experiments and surveys stated that were conducted by different researchers somehow provided several people ideas and sufficient information about its history, why Emoji was created, how its characters developed, and how it started from the bottom up to the point where it reached its pinnacle. Generally, this program proved that there is no harm in trying out new and unique things because no one knows what will happen next few years or decades, and this thing that a person risks might be the next big
At the end of the 20th century, Japanese cellphone users start …show more content…
The Emoji that netizens use nowadays is different from what early users of this program use. This program has changed a lot, from a boring picture to a lively and pleasing digital image. From merely one hundred fifty twelve-pixel by twelve-pixel characters to more than one thousand, three hundred characters. Before, the characters’ only theme is just pure human emotions but now, not only human emotions but also other things such as animals, food and drinks, celebrations, human activities, and many more. They made a modern digital image of these things. According to Sternbergh (2014), these characters were inspired by some of the creator’s childhood experiences, including kanji, Japanese borrowed characters from written Chinese, and manga which are Japanese comic books. Robb (2014) asserts that the idea behind Emoji is actually quite old because according to her, the pictographic hieroglyphs and cuneiform inscriptions from Mesopotamia was our earliest form of writing which was developed around five thousand years ago and Emoji is slightly similar to how it was used. However, Ben Zimmer, an American linguist, has a different view of the development of Emoji. He thinks these emoticons may help us include again in our current language something that we have lost. For him, Emoji is not a threat to written language, rather an enrichment because written language limits individuals in expressing their emotions, the language has …show more content…
At first, the developers of this program simply tried if it can catch the attention of Japanese teenagers. It indeed caught these teenagers’ attention but something more exhilarating happened, its popularity suddenly increased not only in Japan but also in different countries around the world throughout their stay in the industry. As of now, this program attracted several people, not only teenagers but also netizens and people that use smartphones. The experiments and surveys stated that were conducted by different researchers somehow provided several people ideas and sufficient information about its history, why Emoji was created, how its characters developed, and how it started from the bottom up to the point where it reached its pinnacle. Generally, this program proved that there is no harm in trying out new and unique things because no one knows what will happen next few years or decades, and this thing that a person risks might be the next big