Hey millennials, stop ruining emoji for Gen Z
Face the facts
When emojis were first designed by Shigetaka Kurita in 1999, they were intended specifically for the Japanese market. But just over a decade later, theUnicode Consortium, sometimes described as “the UN for tech,” unveiled these icons to the whole world.
In 2011,Instagramtracked the uptake of emojis through user messages, watching how ? eclipsed :-) in just a few years. Old-style smileys, using punctuation marks, now look as outdated as Shakespearean English on our LED screens: a sign of fogeyness in baby boomers (people born between 1946 and 1964) or an ironic throwback for the hipsters of gen Z.
The Unicode Consortium now meets each year to consider new types of emoji, including emojis that support inclusivity. In 2015, a new range of skin colors was added to existing emojis. In 2021, the Apple operating system update will include mixed-race and same-sex couples, as well as men and women with beards.
Bitter boomers?
Not everyone has been thrilled by the rise of emoji. In 2018, a Daily Mail headline lamented that “Emojis are ruining the English language,” citing research by Google in which 94% of those surveyed felt that English was deteriorating, in part because of emoji use.
But such criticisms, which are sometimesleveled by boomers, tend to misinterpret emojis, which are after all informal and conversational, not formal and oratory.Studies have foundno evidence that emojis have reduced overall literacy.
On the contrary, it appears that emojis actuallyenhanceour communicative capabilities, including language acquisition.Studieshave shown how emojis are an effective substitute for gestures in non-verbal communication, bringing a new dimension to text.
A 2013 study, meanwhile, suggested that emojis connect to the area of the brain associated with recognizing facial expressions, making a ? as nourishing as a human smile. Given these findings, it’s likely that those who reject emojis actually impoverish their language capabilities.
Creative criticism
The conflict between gen Z and millennials, meanwhile, emerges from confused meanings. Although the Unicode Consortium has a definition for each icon, including the 217 Apple are due to release, out in the wild they often take on new meanings. Many emojis have more than one meaning: a literal meaning, and a suggested one, for instance. Subversive, rebellious meanings are often created by the young: today’s gen Z.
Theaubergine? is a classic example of how an innocent vegetable has had its meaning creatively repurposed by young people. Thebrain? is an emerging example of the innocent-turned-dirty emoji canon, which already boasts alarge corpus.
And it doesn’t stop there. With gen Z nowat the helm of digital culture, the emoji encyclopedia is developing new ironic and sarcasticdouble meanings. It’s no wonder that millennials can’t keep up, and keep provoking outrage from younger people who consider themselves to be highly emoji-literate.
Emojis remain powerful means of emotional and creative expression, even if some in gen Z claim they’ve been made redundant by misuse. This new batch of 217 emojis will be adopted across generations and communities, with each staking their claim to different meanings and combinations. The stage is set for a new round of intergenerational mockery.
This article byMark Brill, Senior Lecturer, School of Games, Film and Animation,Birmingham City Universityis republished fromThe Conversationunder a Creative Commons license. Read theoriginal article.
Story byThe Conversation
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