Emojis are one of the few unifier languages in the world. We all send smiley faces, heart eyes and sad faces to let people know how we feel about them. But how did it all start? This article covers the complete history of emoji, how they came to be, why they’ve become so popular and where they’re headed in the future.
The history of emojis
In the early 90s, experts predicted that emoticons would eventually replace words altogether. They were wrong. Instead, a Japanese company called NTT DoCoMo came up with a system of pictorial icons for its mobile phone service J-Phone. The reason behind this was that people wanted to be able to type in words without learning how to input Japanese characters. In 1999, Apple created an emoji keyboard for their smartphones and by 2007 about 10% of all texts sent from iPhones were emojis.
Pre-emoji world
The first emoji was created in 1999 by Shigetaka Kurita. It was a picture of the bulbous-nosed cartoon character, Mr. Hat, which he created for an online chat program. It wasn’t until 2007 that emoji were included on smartphones, and then spread to other platforms soon after that.
New emoji set to be released soon
The release date for the new set is coming up on July 17th, when iOS 12 will be released. The list of new emoji includes redheads, curly-haired people, superheroes, kangaroos, llamas, lions, zebras and more.
Conclusion
The emoji was invented in the 1990s and has been accepted as a form of communication ever since. It has survived the test of time and still continues to be an ever-present part of modern society. Its popularity even led to a protest against proposed changes by Apple, which led to the company backing down from its previous versions.
