As of the beginning of February, we have 3053 emoji, including 230 approved this year; yes there are annual versions of emoji now, such as Microsoft Word or tax returns. This is a huge number of emoticons. Even now we have symbols representing people with disabilities, an impressive movement of digital representation, but we also have innumerable alien forms, forms of railways, fingers bent in all shapes and superheroes. This year, garlic and yoyo were added. But each new addition makes finding the right code more difficult.
However, the express code fails to represent every possible identity. There are no brides, for example. There are no white men with brown hair and beard. New emoticons include pairs of different skin colors holding hands to each other, allowing couples of different races to use an expressive symbol that they finally know. But adding different options to the skin of each member of the family in multi-person groups, such as family (๐ช), would mean access to 4225 options. This year's emoji adds options based on gender neutral, but these options are not available in occupations such as a doctor or astronaut. Unless emoticons are associated with the Batmuji avatar, a personal emoji according to your personality, some people will always be out of the picture. Even if they do, who will have the trouble of creating a new image for everyone who wants to describe it in a quick message?
As a white man whose identity is often the default in emoticons, let me be less frankly that the growing diversity of the world's favorite expressionist language is a good thing. But overall, the emoji has become more specific and less flexible as more symbols emerge. This change adds not only more options between emoticons, but also its semiotic function [1]. Over time, visual language has shifted from abstract and photographic uses to specific directions.
The first Imuji charges for Japanese mobile phones were created by NTT Docomo in 1999. The imogi was a pictogram, or iconography. The first type, such as a train or a cigarette, acts like an international signboard, conveying meaning through resemblance to an object. The second type is symbols that represent ideas or concepts and do not represent objects in themselves, such as a circle crossed by a line of halves (๐ซ) to refer to prevention, for example. There are many emoji hybrid between the two types; the heart or snowman is not to portray the actual heart or the sculptures of winter, but to indicate love or cold. The first emoji that came out for light in 1999 was small and also low resolution: 12 square pixels, and one color, making it like airport signage more than symbolic images.
The pectograms (including the amygrama ones) are strong because they are specific but flexible. The train can represent a train line, subway, game and so on. A man's snow can literally mean snow, or a warning that the weather is cold, or even a complaint from the office heat regulator. Where the joy of emoticons and their power stems from the ambiguity inherent in their writing "pictogedigramy".
This power continues with today's high-resolution versions. The skull (๐) never means that the speaker holds a skull in his hand, but it offers a similar interaction or something like "I almost die from laughter." The imoji, originally designed to denote the eastern bending of greeting or reverence (๐๏ธ๏ธ), takes on a more abstract meaning to subjugate or shrink in the West. Fire (๐ฅ) may mean camp fire or house fire, but it often refers to enthusiasm, ferocity or even spice. These meanings and other meanings are possible because expressive symbols act primarily as ideograms, that is, they symbolize a meaning. But as expressive symbols become more specific in appearance and meaning, the flexibility of their ideology has eroded. See my version of Emogie's cocktail drink in the picture below.
Most of them have the meaning of ideography: they suggest "cocktails" in general, and you can imagine using them to suggest that the time has come to drink, or to indicate that you are waiting in the bar, or to say that you have drinks and you should not lead, the meaning varies depending on the context, This makes the old emoji a sign, not a work of art.
Modern emoji can work in the same way at times. But it is too detailed and specific to diminish its usefulness. It is not a symbol of cocktail, it is a picture of a kind of drink, and this is the trend in the world of emoji, there is almost imogi for each type of spirits, such as beer (๐บ), red wine (๐ท), whiskey (๐ฅ) Mai Tai (๐น).
More detail and definition undoubtedly offers more options, but these options are no longer implicitly indirect, and have become only illustrative at best and perhaps merely illustrative. Imogi of the cup may mean "I show you a cup of whiskey," or "I greet you with a toast, as happens in official events." Unexpectedly, all of these emoticons are less applicable because they contain more information!
The desire to provide more detailed information is why we have requested additions to the iMuji group until we have reached this huge number! For example, this year's list will have a symbol of blood. Unicode [2] is flexible to use as part of its review of applications, and Imogee Point of Blood has the ability to refer to all kinds of blood-related matters from plasma donation to nasal bleeding. It is logical that people seek to make emoji cover the chain of human experiences, but more specificity means less flexibility. This means that emoticons that guarantee other possible meanings will be a less favored option than another with a single fixed meaning.
This idea may have political merit or not, but it represents a shift in the way the IMOGI has been designed, approved, and used since the iPhone became popular worldwide in 2010. It also seems that the assumption that IMOJI is often better and automatically identified is also spreading. And the claim that there is no emoji to describe such or such became one of the spread mimes.
These factors have changed the way emoji is designed, chosen, and used. Harry McCracken writes about the rise of Imbugi, a paste that may refer to dumplings, pancakes or other food, explaining how the Unicode complex discusses the global implications of the designs of new characters and symbols, including the implications of certain forms of dumbing and names in the world. The result (๐ฅ), designed by Lu Ying was "romantic ideal" according to McCracken "and aimed at something that can cross cultural boundaries."
The paste is a success for the graphic on the graphic (even if some platforms do not maintain their overall appearance). But it is likely to provide limited applicability as compared to more iconographic characters. The concept of universal dough does not provide the expressive flexibility of a smile (๐ฌ), siren (๐จ) or clamp (๐).
Getting Imogee just like an airport sign seems like a simplification of the diverse and unique experiences of people with disabilities. However, the Unicode compiler responded to this shortcoming by adding a graphic identifier, such as two wheelchairs, a service dog, a guide dog, a mechanical arm, a stalk, and so on. Do not misunderstand me, all these new expressive symbols suitable for disability are wonderful! But it provides further evidence that imogi is becoming a large guide of stationary plates rather than a smaller set of flexible edograms. This change not only adds to the emoji; it also changes the way it works.
The strangeness of the interfaces used to access emoticons increases this change. Being confused by the multiplicity of choices, we have become more tempted to write a single word and make the device offer matches from the emoji list, and some interfaces allow the use of emoticons. This is also the way some text input systems work for non-alphabetical languages. But unlike logograms, which represent a word or phrase like those used for Chinese characters, ideograms flourish when their meanings remain ambiguous. Trying to match icons with words encourages the consistency of meaning, especially since it becomes difficult to find any emoji while we are looking at the list.
Imogi moves from being illustrations to stereoscopic images. This change has some obvious benefits, such as the ability to provide images that better represent a wider range of individuals and their experiences. It also changes the expressive emoji function towards selection and away from abstraction. Emotional symbols are the strangest and most successful ideographic language in mankind. If they become illustrative, such modifications should be discussed using words, not simply by celebrating (๐) or denouncing (๐ ) using images.
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Margins:
[1] Study and analysis of the semantic meaning of emotions, shapes and expressions.
[2] Unicode is a non-profit organization that coordinates and organizes Unicode's development work (which seeks to replace all code codes with a unified global system).
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Translated by Sarah El Masry.
This article is from The Atlantic and does not necessarily reflect the location of Medan.