This has been a question that has bothered me for a while after our last class ended, and my response to it would probably be too tech-centric. There are a lot of factors that determine what would be considered as communication like context and who the intended recipients were, etc. For now, let’s say that communication for me is the reception of a message by a party, whether intentional or not. As long as there is something to be inferred, then there is some sort of communication being made.

As I read through James Gleick’s The Information, he talks about the concept of tones being part of a language and how saying things in different tones could mean entirely different sentences. This made me think about our move as a whole society to begin using Emoji’s, in a sense they also are some sort of tonality that can now be understood differently according to the context or who the sender and recipients are.

Even with Emoji’s or Emoticons (Emotion Icons) there is a story to be retraced to define where we are now. Speaking from my own point of view, growing up with the internet understanding emoticons felt natural, much like how we speak our native languages easily. Being able to immediately understand that “:)” was a smiley face or “:(“was a sad face and not a typo of a colon and a bracket. While as someone like my Mother on the other was not able to conceive that these symbols we combine are a way to communicate emotion.

As we move forward, emoticons begin getting integrated within websites, forums, and Instant Messaging (MSN, AOL). These text symbols now start to automatically transform to a more basic version of what we now call Emoji’s upon entering them within a text box. This sort of “translation” of text into images makes understanding the emotion meant to be conveyed in a text easier for people that were inexperienced with internet culture.

Going even beyond just the basic text emoticons like “:)” and “:(“, we now have Kaomoji which are the equivalent of text emoticons using Japanese characters. These are much more complex looking characters that convey very different emotions. “ヽ(・∀・)ﾉ” This being an example of a happy expression and “( ; ω ; )”  expressing sadness. Even then unlike the English text emoticons, the Japanese have a larger variety of emoticons.

An example being merely looking at the happiness emoticons, in English text we would have around 5 different variations to express happiness while on the other hand, through Kaomoji there are at least 20 different ways of expressing happiness.

As we begin developing an understanding for emoticons, the concept of social media and smart phones starts booming which causes the creation of the Emoji keyboard, and with it, the replacement of the word Emoticon. Although Emoji offers a keyboard with a much more varied list of emoticons, and is understood by everyone regardless of their age, gender, ethnicity, etc. However, one of the main things about emoticons was that they distinguished internet users and their culture from those who were not heavily involved with it. The release of Emoji’s gave everyone the power to be able to express their emotions through text but even then the context of Emoji has become an important aspect to consider when texting.

For example, a lot of Emoji’s have been claimed to be used as memes or as a reference to something else. One needs to know their audience or recipient before sending a flood of Emoji’s because of the context of the conversation. A person using the laughing and crying emoji through text can be understood in different ways, an example would be me sending that Emoji to my Mom (Not a frequent internet user) would be taken at face value for what it is. Expressing Laughter. However, if I send the same emoji to a friend who I know would understand my use of irony through that emoji, then my message is different.

I find it to be amusing how the internet along with it’s forms of communication are ever evolving, and how the understanding of things comes naturally to one’s who frequently use the internet versus those who casually use it.