Generation Emoji: Understanding Emotive Language as Essential Communication

The recent pandemic forced digital acceleration at an exponential rate. We learned to evolve in a pandemic where isolation and solitude were harsh truths for many of us. Overnight, expressive forms of digital communication became imperative, arguably, surpassing one-to-one emotional fluency. With little or no interaction with the outside world, social media platforms became the backbone of human interconnection. Emojis played a vital role in the personification and diversification of computer-mediated communications during the pandemic.

The Evolving Emoji

When we think of the year 1999, there are some key events that may come to mind. The premiere of The Matrix, the introduction of the Euro, and Serena Williams’ first-ever Grand Slam title. Not known by many, this was also the year the first ever Emoji was created by Shigetaka Kurita. In twenty-two years, the development of the Emoji has made this initial feat almost unrecognisable under the same term we use today. These tiny emotive characters have developed from a millennial fad to a modern pictographic language. Each year new Emoji designs are accepted by Unicode, now some believe that the collection has become overwhelming.

A few decades after the birth of Emoji, the COVID-19 pandemic crashed into our lives without warning, stealing our right to socialise and leaving many people completely isolated. As a result, digital communication became the new normal and with that, the use of emojis changed dramatically.

“The use of emojis has been normal throughout the pandemic, in the broad spectrum. Individual meanings, of course, mutate over time. Although, the number of people who have had access to emojis has changed the way Emoji are used.”

There have been a select few emojis that have become increasingly popular throughout the pandemic. For example, the face with medical mask emoji has increased in popularity, resulting in Apple’s development of the Emoji in 2020, making small tweaks to the original design to create a smiling face behind the mask. An adaptation created, perhaps, to make mask wearing in the western hemisphere universally accepted — a big challenge for such a small instance of design. The syringe emoji also saw a massive rise in popularity with Apple changing the liquid from blood red to blue to better represent the COVID-19 vaccination. Some say that this particular emoji is by far the best representation of 2021. Unsurprisingly, the microbe emoji also saw a massive rise in use. Arielle Pardes, a senior writer at WIRED states “Microbe is seeing the highest use it has ever had since approval in 2018.” Stating the known is easy but finding more of an in-depth explanation for these surges in use has proven difficult. Perhaps the simplest reasoning is that the use of these emojis puts a light-hearted spin on an otherwise depressing turn of events.

“The use of emojis opens up avenues for having banter, humour, and slight tongue-in-cheek sentences. We as humans are visual creatures, we have evolved to use our eyes and so we look at pictures and interpret them far quicker than we can interpret any text. We will always use emojis, because we need that extra meta of information of what we are saying, but what we are saying with it will definitely change”.

Recent developments in emojis have allowed us to embrace the power of play, this is especially apparent in Microsoft’s new collection of ‘Fluent’ emojis. The new collection shows a modern take on previous two-dimensional flat-style emojis that Microsoft created over a decade ago.

Check out Microsoft’s Fluent Emoji Collection: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ebQPcHxKTc

It is reasonable to believe that the development of emojis, over the years, has followed a certain design structure. With design in the 1990s, we had skeuomorphism, icons represented the thing that they were. This was an era when your save button was a floppy disk because that is what you save to in the nighties. This style produced very intricate and complex icons that soon became outdated. In the early 2000s, we move to a minimalist flat design where any ‘real’ feeling was lost. We are now working with neumorphism or neo-skeuomorphism which is, in simple terms, a revamp of skeuomorphism. Arguably, a modern and exciting trend that creates a realistic, three-dimensional computer interface. Microsoft’s ‘Fluent’ emoji collection is a solid basis for the argument that emoji will continuously adapt to the developing world of digital media.

The Diverse Emoji

In recent years, diversity in emojis has been a hot topic. The use of these icons empowers people to speak their minds in digital communication. Emojis have continually advanced over the years, the pandemic has increased the rapidity of this process.

In 2013, emojis were coined a ‘generational fad’. For a long time, it was common knowledge that emojis ‘belonged’ to Millennials and later Generation Z, age was a massive factor in the use of emojis. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the older generations turned to emojis as a supplement to their digital conversation, fashioning a generationally diverse communicative style. In 2021, a massive ninety-two percent of the online public were using emojis. With this diversity has come a generational divide. News flash, Generation Z has now deemed the tears of joy emoji ‘uncool’. With younger generations, the use of emojis has taken a turn becoming more ironic and even more nuanced. These new generational adaptations have increased ambiguity and have ultimately created a larger division among emoji users.

Each technological giant has its own emoji design creating uncertainty in cross-platform communication. These aforementioned ‘giants’ include Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Samsung. This platform diversity prevents the validity of effective communication using emojis. In recent years Facebook and Twitter have started to create their own individual look. There will always be dissimilarities between platforms, but I believe that Microsoft’s ‘Fluent’ emoji collection is a step in the right direction, that will hopefully create a more unified feel across platforms.

The Cultural Emoji

Over the last decade, there has been a rapid change in digital technology and communication. Emojis have certainly kept pace with these developments, especially during the pandemic. In September 2020, Twitter produced multiple billboards throughout seven cities in The United States of America to aid the promotion of masks during the pandemic. Twitter has shown initiative by creating a modern campaign to which people can relate.

On the opposing side of this campaign, nearing the end of 2020, the #SmilesMatter Twitter tag began to take hold. #SmilesMatter is a western movement created by anti-maskers to discourage the wearing of masks throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. Emojis played a central role in this movement, as people were urged to add the smiling face emoji to their profiles in support of the movement. It is a wonder how such a small piece of design managed to create such political unrest. An indisputable case that illustrates evidence that emojis have defined communication during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Emoji use creates a light, fun side to an otherwise unprecedented and depressing turn of events. Public health campaigns have been looking at how they can use emojis as a call to action. In March 2021, Calm requested an update for an ”Unhappy Poo” Emoji. They believe that this is an emoji that would help make it easier for people to speak up when they are having issues with mental health. CBBC’s Newsround shed some light on this topic.

“It comes twelve months after the UK’s first coronavirus lockdown where there are concerns about the impact the pandemic has had on people’s mental health. In a poll by the charity, almost ninety percent of the people said they found it difficult to start a conversation while they were struggling mentally.”

In 2016, a mental health app called Emoodji was released. The app, created by Mind, helps students to talk about their mental health by attributing certain emojis to their feelings while online.

“Emojis might be one of the most effective forms of emotional communication we use today.”

The Multifunctional Emoji

The popularity of emojis has risen exponentially over the years. Each day, over five billion emojis are sent on social messaging sights such as Facebook Messenger. People want to have an option to express emotion, something that is more than just words. Reliance on these social media platforms hit an all-time high during the pandemic as for a large number of people, social media was one of few options for social interaction. As a result of this, platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Zoom became vital services.

In recent years, there was a lot of discussion about the singular-like button on the Facebook platform. People felt annoyed that they were not able to show a range of emotions towards friends and family. In 2016, Facebook introduced six optional emoji reactions. Facebook announced this development in a blog post.

“We’ve been listening to people and know that there should be more ways to easily and quickly express how something you see in your News Feed makes you feel. That’s why today we are launching Reactions, an extension of the Like button, to give you more ways to share your reaction to a post in a quick and easy way.”

In this statement, Facebook failed to add that they would also be using this update as a way of collecting more data, five times the amount to be exact, all harvested to manipulate future usage. This process is called ‘the extraction imperative’, a term mentioned in Shoshana Zuboff’s Book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. She states that raw material supplies must be produced at an ever-expanding scale. Nick Rabb explains his views in his article on surveillance capitalism.

“If you assume Facebook is operating under the extraction imperative, that they want as much behavioural data from you as possible, then it becomes clear that the emoji reactions are aimed at getting more data about your emotions. You can only infer so much from a simple “like,” but reading a user’s sad, angry, or happy reactions could allow much better predictions about your current and future mood.”

In 2021, during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Facebook released the care emoji. Facebook created this feel-good reaction to give users the opportunity to show support for friends and family during the pandemic. The Facebook care emoji was a welcome addition to the reaction panel. Perhaps this was Facebook’s attempt to patch up the negative reputation received over the years regarding privacy and security. Overall, I think people were just happy that it has been released, especially during a pandemic with a large amount of sadness attached to it.

Summary

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, emojis acted as an integral form of communication when minimal interaction with the outside world left us feeling down. The diversity of people using this pictorial language has increased as emojis have steadily evolved from a millennial fad to an essential communicator. Emojis painted a light-hearted picture of a dire situation and enabled the population to embrace the power of play and supplement vital digital communication.

Emojis will continue to evolve alongside digital media and are now an enormous part of our everyday communication whether we are surviving a pandemic or not. We crave the emotional assurance that emojis provide. Perhaps we all need an Unhappy Poo emoji in our life.