Cover Emojis have become an integral part of our everyday digital communication, adding non-verbal context through our screens (Photo: Getty Images)
Emojis have become an integral part of our everyday digital communication, adding non-verbal context through our screens (Photo: Getty Images)
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They’re in our texts, emails and even courtrooms. Here’s the story of how one smiley face transformed into a library of 3,790 emojis
A thumb-up emoji (👍🏻) to confirm plans, a heart emoji (❤️) to show affection or a face with tears of joy emoji (😂) to show you’ve found something funny. Emojis are the modern shorthand for our feelings, sometimes replacing words entirely. It’s hard to imagine a digital conversation without them.
But their role is far deeper than simple substitution. As linguist Gretchen McCulloch, author of Because Internet, explains, “Emoji didn’t become so essential because they stand in for words—but because they finally made writing a lot more like talking.” They restore the non-verbal cues we lose in text, adding tone and warmth that a full stop can’t convey.
What began as a handful of pixel icons in the 1990s has evolved into a library of 3,790 icons, with new ones added annually. So how did these colourful symbols evolve from novelty doodles to an indispensable part of global communication?
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From :-) to ☺️
Long before the first emoji, there was the emoticon. In 1982, computer scientist Scott Fahlman proposed using :-) on a university bulletin board to distinguish jokes from serious posts. While the West was winking with ;-), Japan developed its own kaomoji, upright faces like (^_^).
In the late 1990s, Japanese designer Shigetaka Kurita created the first emoji set for telco NTT DoCoMo: 176 simple 12x12 pixel icons. His idea was sparked partly by the adverse public reaction when a heart-shaped emoji was removed from the company’s pagers, leading many people to switch to other carriers. When designing, he drew inspiration from a wide range of sources, including weather forecast symbols and manga.
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Above Japanese designer Shigetaka Kurita speaks onstage at the 27th Webby Awards in New York (Photo: Getty Images)
Japanese designer Shigetaka Kurita speaks onstage at the 27th Webby Awards in New York (Photo: Getty Images)
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The global breakthrough came when they were added to the Unicode Standard, a system that ensures characters appear consistently across devices and platforms. A smiley sent from one phone would appear the same on another, making emojis more popular.
“At first, we were just designing for the Japanese market. I didn’t assume that emoji would spread and become so popular internationally,” Kurita told the UK news outlet The Guardian. “I’m surprised at how widespread they have become. Then again, they are universal, so they are useful communication tools that transcend language.”
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Decoding emojis in courtrooms
Today, an estimated five billion emojis are sent daily on Messenger, Facebook’s free messaging app, the social media giant reported. According to Adobe’s 2022 Global Emoji Trend Report, 92 per cent of global users deploy them across language barriers. Unsurprisingly, love tops the charts: 73 per cent use emojis to show affection, followed by happiness.
Emojis have even entered the courtroom. Santa Clara University law professor Eric Goldman, who tracks public court opinions, told American news outlet CNN that the number of US cases citing emojis as evidence rose from 33 in 2017 to 53 in 2018. They appear most often in sexual harassment, criminal and, increasingly, workplace disputes.
Above The release of Emoji 16.0 in September 2024 brought the total number of emojis to 3,790 (Photo: Getty Images)
The release of Emoji 16.0 in September 2024 brought the total number of emojis to 3,790 (Photo: Getty Images)
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This poses challenges for judges and juries who must decode their digital intent. The folded hands emoji (🙏🏻), for instance, can mean prayer, gratitude or even a high-five. A thumbs-up (👍🏻) is friendly in many Western countries but offensive in parts of the Middle East.
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Do you speak Gen Z?
How you use emojis can instantly reveal your age. Generations have developed their own emoji “dialects”, where meanings shift and older users can find themselves out of the loop.
The Oxford Dictionary’s Word of the Year in 2015 was the face with tears of joy emoji (😂)—the first pictograph to win. But to many Zoomers, using it unironically is now seen as cringe. Instead, they signal laughter with the skull emoji (💀), which means “dying” of laughter, or the crying emoji (😭), which means “crying” from laughing too hard.
As digital communication evolves, the question is what comes next. How will Generation Alpha—the first to grow up alongside AI—reshape the way we express ourselves? Will emojis endure, or will an entirely new visual language take their place?
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Based in Hong Kong, editor Yoyo Chow covers the people and ideas redefining Asia’s future—from cutting-edge innovation and AI to bold moves in sustainability and diversity. She also drives content for Tatler Gen.T in Hong Kong, a platform and community spotlighting the region’s next generation of startup founders, creatives and changemakers.
Before that, she was a video journalist producing content for international TV and digital platforms, including Reuters and South China Morning Post. If you have a powerful story to share, she’s all ears. Send press materials, event invites and any inquiries to yoyo.chow@tatlerasia.com.
