Emoticons have been around since 1999 and the popularity of these little yellow smileys is only growing. But who uses this modern language? And are emojis only for Millennials?
Emojis are a simple means of communicating, individuals can express their emotions, their wants, and their needs with a simple click of an emoji which of course is appealing to Millennials who are always looking for ways to cut corners. Max Thorpe from CMO believes that emojis can be "the first step toward developing a universal language that everyone could understand." And I think he's right about that.
Gaining popularity in 2011, emojis became a common thing to send via text or instant message because of Apple's quick thinking. When Apple released iOS 5, emojis became a standard keyboard for all iPhone users. It's with this technological advancement that emojis gained fans ranging from different age groups but was still favored by Millennial, and it's easy to see why that's the case when "Over 85% of U.S. Millennials own a smart phone", according to a study done by Nielsen.
The modern hieroglyphics, as called by, YPluse, “are continuing to dominate communication.” The 2015 article goes on to say, that nowadays texting conversations can easily be mistaken for hieroglyphics because of the excessive use of emojis by teenagers. And if the text conversations did not cause enough confusion, a Bible translated in emojis was created, furthermore showing the comparison between the symbolic language and emojis.
May 29th, 2016, a translator who asked to remain anonymous and go by the "name" of 😎, published the Emoji Bible, a creation in which all 66 books of the King James Version was converted into a series of emojis and commonly-used internet slang. The publication, which is just shy of 3,300 pages is sold on iTunes for $2.99. "I thought if we fast forward 100 years in the future, an emoji Bible would exist, so I though it'd be fun to try to make it," said 😎."I wanted to make it similar to how you might get or tweet a bible verse, by shrinking the total character count." Six month, 80 emojis, 200 corresponding words later, the book which is subtitled "Scripture 4 Millennials" was produced.
Photo Credit: Screenshot from YouTube Video
Mark Dice, a verified YouTuber, shares his thoughts on the Emoji Bible.
92% of online consumers say they use emojis in some means several times a week, 78% of the consumers identifying as women and 60% identifying as men. And emojis are becoming the fastest growing language in the U.K., which means I got to buy a plane ticket. Using emojis is a simple way to gain the attention of people in Generation Y and studies have proven this to be true. According to Marketing Land, tweeting emojis can increase engagement by 25.4% and Buddy media study has proven that using emoji on Facebook will increase your number of likes by 57% as well as up your comments/share percentage by 33%, which is very important in the social-media driven world we live in.
Photo credit: Nielsen
The chart above displays the percentage of individuals in a specific age group who own a smartphone.
"Milennials are arguably the biggest users of social media, from using emojis to express themselves and incorporating the ever so popular hashtag to overusing filters on photo...," said Fabian Carrillo, a reporter at Elite Daily.
People get excited about new emoji because they represent a part of who we are and to millennials, the “emoji-using” generation, this part is a widely represents who they are.