The Emojification of America
Some people don’t understand it. My grandfather once tried to talk about them and called them “emogis.” They wonder why people are using pictures to communicate, reverting back to caveman-like symbols instead of using the nuances of a phonetic language. But like it or not, those little yellow faces — called emojis — are sweeping the internet and becoming standard in every operating system and messaging application.
If you’re interested in the history of emojis, check out this article from The Verge. The TL;DR version is that in 1995, Shigetaka Kurita noticed frequent miscommunication in digital conversations so he found a way to convey emotions in as few pixels as possible. Fast forward to 2011, when Apple made emojis standard in iOS 5, and we started seeing cute little pictures pop up everywhere. Just like Pokemon and Tamagotchi, a quirky Japanese idea found its way to America, and caught on like wildfire.
What’s really interesting is that what was once considered silly and juvenile is now being adopted in all kinds of formats. Facebook recently updated their “Like” button to offer emoji options. Applications found in work environments, such as Venmo and Slack, use emojis heavily. What in the world is going on?! Well, here’s my take on the emoji revolution:
Unlike other trends that have come out of Japan, the emoji has had incredible longevity. What I think has happened is that emojis have been around for so long that there’s a huge part of the US population that grew up using them, from the flip phone era to today. That includes anyone between the ages of 10 and 33, which is around 100 million people here in the states. For nearly all of these people, emojis have become a way of making boring text into something fun and friendly.
If you pay attention to the media, you’ll see some big players using emojis to relate to this key demographic. Look at how Hillary Clinton asked young adults to tweet in three emojis or less how they feel about their student loan debt. Another example is Pepsi trying to be the young and hip alternative to Coca-Cola by incorporating emojis into their branding.
The longer emojis stay mainstream, the larger this demographic will become. It may seem crazy, but you might start seeing emojis in places you would least expect them, like LinkedIn or Amazon. After all, if you’re looking to market yourself or your product to a younger crowd, nothing says cool like a smiley emoji with sunglasses.
To see the original post, and more like it, check out the SnapMobile blog.
