Hello Internet!!!
And Welcome to Behind The Meme.
Today we have a look at the history and origin of emojis!!!
Now this is a topic that very few if any of my viewers have requested.
But I felt it would be interesting to look into the history of what has essentially become
a part of everybody’s language in today’s digital world.
Let’s face it.
They are used within practically every social media platform.
They can be as simple as a little smiley face indicating an emotion one feels when they
receive a positive message.
Or they can be as complex as having harmless vegetables representing a certain part of
the male anatomy.
A part that rhymes with mick, or lick, or stick.
The dick, I’m talking about dicks…the egg plant emoji is used for big black dick.
There I said it.
I started to realize for being a thing that I and many fellow humans use on a nearly daily
basis, I had very little understanding to what their history was and it kinda bugged
me…
So I wanted to dive in and learn a bit more about emojis.
The emoji was first born in Japan! a country that may be most popular for being the mecca
of technology, and also strange vending machines.
I mean they sell almost everything imaginable in vending machines in Japan.
umbrellas…check…weird fish soup stuff,check…. used womens panties….check, I guess….I
don’t know why but they do.
so check.
The point that I’m trying to make is Japan is a pretty interesting place.
To say the least.
They have their own trends and styles that other countries don’t always understand…but
that’s what makes them special.
Emojis are one of those things that started as a trend in Japan and took a bit of time
for the rest of the world to catch on to.
You see in the late 90s there was a huge trend of japanese mobile phone users sending image
based messages to each other.
In fact it was Such a large trend that Japanese mobile phone companies saw a market and a
way to give their customers more of what they wanted.
So they attempted to develop ways to incorporate image based messages within their phones to
appeal to their customers.
But there was one man who saw the bigger picture of things.
A man who goes by the name of shigetaka kurita, I don’t know but I felt like his name had
to be said that way…Is that racist?
I didn’t mean to be racist.
I’m sorry…anyways he realized that with text messages there was the missing element
of human emotion that couldn’t exactly be expressed with letters and numbers.
For example if I send a text to my ex girlfriend saying “I’m gonna kill you for cheating
on me.”
it sounds super creepy and scary but if you add an emoji at the end of the text… its
cool, no restraining order or anything.
Emojis make everything better.
But before emojis , Aside from simple faces using colons and brackets there was no way
to visually express the emotion behind the message.
So shigetaka kurita took inspiration from the weather reports that he would see that
used a sun to communicate good weather and the mangas that he read that would sometimes
use symbols to express a characters emotion without using text.
He created an initial set of 176 symbols that were very basic due to technology limitations
but allowed for the user to express things in a visual way that basic text couldn’t.
He called his new creation “Emoji” with E meaning picture and moji meaning character,
and released them in 1999 making them available through the mobile phone company NTT DoCoMo
which shigetaka was working for at the time.
His images quickly became a hit and began to be heavily used by Japanese mobile phone
users in the following years creating a trend in the country.
It wasn’t until 2007 with the release of the first iPhone that the emoji seeds were
planted to begin to spread beyond the land of strange vending machines.
You see apple was releasing their first cell phone and wanted to break into the gigantic
asian mobile phone market, so they adopted the popular emoji symbols and incorporated
them within their operating system to help appeal to the asian customers.
First being released in november of 2008 on the 2.2 operating system.Apple Even initially
hid the emojis from users in other countries other than Japan.
But eventually people discovered that by using applications they would be able to access
the emojis within their phones.
This development caused Non asian users to use the emojis pretty often, signifying to
apple that there was a demand for emojis outside the asian countries.
but It wasn’t until 2011 with the release of iOS5 that apple officially released the
emojis for all users.
And since then they have been adopted by every mobile company and used everywhere!!
I mean we can’t escape the damn things!
Now there are as many as over 1,800 emojis that are supported on various platforms.
We have symbols to express everything from human emotions, to food, to poop for some
reason that I’m still not sure of, even paper clips, which I can guarantee nobody
in the history of mankind has ever used
emojis have now become engrained within our culture for better or worse.
At first I hated the damn things, I don’t know exactly why but they bugged me.
Since then, although I don’t like admitting it, I use them pretty often.
Love em or hate em,in 2017 you cannot escape the emoji.
They’re on clothes, Incorporated within Art, plastered on Various items.
Basically anything and everything you can imagine has emoji variations.
It has even gotten to the point that celebrities… or so called celebrities, create their own
apps and collections of emojis that you’re able to buy and use.
So if you’re a fan of kim kardashian and enjoy talking to your friends about your slut
like activities theres now a set emojis that allows you to communicate in the trashiest
ways possible.
Hell, if you’re such a big fan of drake that you’re willing to go to the next level
and buy his dad’s emoji set you can do that!
Yeah you heard me correctly, Drake’s dad has his own emoji set!
It’s only 99 cents!
And of course no popular trend would be complete without it’s own special holiday right?
Right!!I mean there’s a holiday for beer can appreciation, bubble baths and even toothaches.
I wish I was joking but I’m not.
So why not have a holiday for emojis?
World emoji day falls on July 17th because the calendar emoji in the apple set of emojis
shows the date july 17 so naturally that became the holiday, complete with its own official
anthem.
Wait until you guys get a load of this….
July 17th, grab your emoji.
it’s world emoji day, we’re having a party.
All around the world all across the globe get on a plane and watch the sunset go.
It doesn’t matter who you are cause everybody uses emoji
Yeah…so that’s a thing I guess…
so you’re probably thinking thats it right.?
I mean how can you top a holiday?
Well I wish that were the case.
Mark your calendars for August 4th 2017, the day of the apocalypse.
That’s the day that the emoji movie comes out in movie theaters.
No Seriously, They are making a movie about emojis.
Now Im not one to judge things before I see them so lets look at the trailer, lets give
it a chance.
For all we know it’s gonna be the next toy story.
so I told management “I can’t work like this!” these lights I’m melting in here.
This is such a load of….uhhh.
No go ahead finish that sentence
Ok, It’s not gonna be the next toy story.
I’m fairly certain we can say that with confidence after seeing that trailer.That
was very stupid to say and I hate myself very much for saying it.
So there you have it!
Emojis have gone from a region specific trend in japan, to conquering the whole world and
becoming engrained in our culture For better or worse.
But hey!
That’s the internet for you and on the internet memes are keeeeng!
Thank you so very much for watching!
Make sure to subscribe so you can catch my next video and stay up to date on all your
favorite memes and trends!
Who knows you may earn about something you never knew about before!
I’ll catch you beautiful people next time!
it’s world emoji day, it’s world emoji day, it’s world emoji day, it’s world
emoji day,