Emoticons will occasionally feature attached arms and legs to a face. Discussion forums about anime and gaming often include the Japanese-style emoticons, which are often very complex ASCII “drawings” depicting whole faces with more detailed facial expressions. I think television shows like “Dragon Ball Z” and “Pokémon” ignited a large interest in Japanese culture, and I think social media is a big part of the culture’s expansion into the west. Recently, Japanese-style emoticons have become especially popular, as Japanese popular culture, including anime and manga, has gained recognition by media consumers in the United States and the West in general. In some cases, a single emoticon can add complete context to a statement and summarize what otherwise would have lengthy wording. Twitter’s “tweet” limit of 140 characters makes the use of smiley faces and text-based symbols much more significant. In particular, I believe that Twitter has made emoticons a more important part of modern communication. Social media websites have also obviously contributed to the use of emoticons. Stores like Hot Topic began selling T-shirts and other products that incorporate emoticons, movies began using emoticons to depict the culture of the web and people began fully embracing the new expansion of written language. With the popularity of instant messaging services like AOL Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger and ICQ about 15 years ago, the emoticons began spreading all throughout popular culture. Emoticons have had a connection to popular culture since they first began showing up. Because of this, it is much easier for people of different cultures to communicate and connect to others from different geographical locations.Īlso, so many aspects of popular culture are based on imagery and symbolism. The feelings and emotions associated with emoticons are understood across different cultures and languages. Emoticons, smiley faces and other shapes and symbols have the advantage of being, for the most part, universal. Global connectedness is a direct result of the invention and success of the Internet, which is largely image-based.Įmoticons can communicate ideas in ways that words sometimes cannot, for one reason or another. I believe it is a natural evolution of language based on the advancement of technology that we have experienced over the past several decades. Moreover, I think the use of emoticons and emojis is a supplemental tool to our traditional forms of expression. One should expect written language only to become more and more complex. It is crazy to think society would degenerate in this respect, while universal knowledge in all fields of thought continues to expand every day. Written language has evolved to a point at which we can express ourselves and the complexities of our psyches in very detailed and precise ways. The earliest civilizations used picture-based communication before written communication was not as developed and complex as it is today. I do not think the use of emoticons is shifting our communication to one that is “dumbed-down” and image-based I think it is silly to think that it would. What implications does this popular form of communication have for our culture? Are we approaching what some call an image-based culture, or are these emoticons simply supplemental means of expression? Do they say things that words cannot, or are they a crutch for our inability to articulate our thoughts?
Our culture is saturated with pictorial representations of words and concepts, which have been dubbed “emoticons” or, in Japanese, “emoji.” Sometimes, entire conversations are expressed exclusively by emoticons.
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