What Are Emoji?

Emoji, commonly known as 'smileys', often confused with emoticons, are small digital images used in digital communication such as text messages, social media communication and posting, along with many other forms of communication in technology.  They are used to express an idea or an emotion visually, using a small amount of space that would otherwise require a much larger amount of text to express, or that could not be expressed properly, or at all with text alone.

Emoji chart

It originates from the Japanese portmanteau of 'e' for picture, and 'moji' for letter or character.  It is complete coincidence that emoji sounds similar to the word 'emotion' in the English language.

They were invented in the late 90s by Shigetaka Kurita, who was invloved in the launch of the world's first mobile internet platform during his time at NTT docomo, a large mobile service provider in Japan.

The reason for this was that the phone which was to use the new internet platform had a very small screen, with a limited amount of space for characters, which Kurita felt would make it difficult for users to express themselves with text alone.

Inspired by emoticons, which were invented in the early 80s, and by 'manpu' from Japanese manga, (common visual indicators of emotion) he invented the emoji.

Common visual indicators, eg. teardrops overhead represent nervousness.