Emoji (the word is an anglicization of Japanese characters that translate literally to “picture letter”) takes the idea of the emoticon—the smiley face :), the sad face :(, the winking face ;), the heart <3—and brings it to its logical conclusion: full color, detail, a world of options. For starters, the classic emoticon faces are turned right-side up, now rendered as bright yellow orbs, and their expressions, no longer subjected to the limits of standard punctuation marks, run the gamut of cartoonish emotion: grin with eyes closed; grin with eyes open; wide-eyed, red-cheeked embarrassment; eyes-lowered, red-cheeked embarrassment; gritted teeth; hearts for eyes; puckered lips; wink with a smile; wink with tongue out; features crumpled in misery; eyebrows furrowed in anger.

This is how The New Yorker describes Emoji.

(H/T Brian)

19 Notes/ Hide

  1. agnesbsquare reblogged this from bobbyfinger
  2. ablogname reblogged this from kellyreeves
  3. kellyreeves reblogged this from blurintofocus and added:
    For me it’s just an auto emoji reblog
  4. turnabout reblogged this from meganwest and added:
    There is a very long descriptive list of many emoji which is too long to reblog here.
  5. meganwest reblogged this from blurintofocus
  6. catiedisabato reblogged this from bobbyfinger and added:
    Begins in the New Aesthetic and ends as a poem
  7. blurintofocus reblogged this from bobbyfinger and added:
    Emoji counts as an auto linguistic reblog.
  8. joshfjelstad said: “bright yellow orbs”
  9. bobbyfinger posted this