In messaging, plain words and numbers get boring after a while, so to spice up messages and posts, emojis and emoticons were created. By "spicing up" messages and posts, people can send and receive messages with emotions attached within the emojis and emoticons. In the picture below, an emoji is on the left, while an emoticon is on the right. They share the same meaning, but the execution of sending them in a message is the only difference.
Emoticons entered the picture in 1982 thanks to Scott E. Fahlman, who was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Using the smiley face ":-)" in emails, it eventually spread on emails all across the world. The smiley faced also evolved into the frowning face ":-(". While emoticons are some minor innovations in communication compared to others, they still had a tremendous impact and influence on the way people communicated with each other. It is a major turning point in digital dialect that is etched in the history of communication.
While emoticons have somewhat gone out of style, emojis are very popular nowadays. People use emojis in texts and social media posts/comments all the time. The word, "emoji", originates from the words "e", which means picture in Japanese, and "emoji", which means character in Japanese. Popular emojis include the laughing emoji, the crying emoji, and the many colors of hearts (😂😭💜💕). Created by Shigetaka Kurita in 1999, emojis were originally created in a 12x12 grid for a total of 144 pixels. As the years have gone by, emojis have become more detailed with more pixels, which creates the picture we all see when we send them in messages. Kurita originally created 176 emojis. On phones emojis became available on the iPhone 5, which came out in 2011. Now, there are over 3,000 emojis on the latest iPhones.
As someone who uses emojis and emoticons often, it was neat to learn about their origins and how they came to be what they are today. They have both shaped how people communicate in 2021 and for the foreseeable future.
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