Emojis are small icons and images used in text messages that represent one’s emotions about a topic being debated.
Emojis were invented in Japan in the late 1990s and rose to international stardom after Apple included them on its iPhone, followed suit by Android.
The word emoji joins two Japanese words: ‘e’, which means picture, and ‘moji’, which stands for character. So an emoji is about a picture with character which represents what its sender is feeling.
Emojis today comprehend not only faces but also animals, everyday objects, flags, symbols, and much more.
The small pictures have become so popular and bespoke, that users today are able to have entire conversations simply using emojis. This helps bring down language barriers.
Currently, there are also two social networking platforms where users chat exclusively using emojis. These are Emoji and Emojicate.
The hype around emojis has also led Oxford Dictionaries to include the word in the dictionary back in 2013.
