Why Everyone Loves Emojis
These colorful and interesting symbols are everywhere and are constantly becoming more integrated into our current culture by the day. Essentially they have left the once purely digital sphere and are now even found in fashion catalogs, promotional material, and much more!
This is an incredibly interesting transition, considering mankind started with cave paintings and hieroglyphics, evolved to gestural language and have now come full circle. One main difference though, is that unlike in ancient Egypt, whose hyroglifics had an unquestionable meaning, we each use emojis and interpret them differently. There are very obvious meanings to certain emojis that reflect directly to the generation using them ( 🍆 and 🍑, anyone?).
Phallic interpretations aside, they are becoming a means of communication that is sweeping the world. Social media posts including emojis are more likely to gain engagement - in every country. Because their reach is growing every day, emojis have become more inclusive on many fronts to fit the people using them, to include racial diversity and options for same-sex relationships and families. They are being harnessed for good in hashtags supporting quality initiatives around the world.
All of this is wonderful, but it still doesn’t express exactly WHY we love them so much. Part of this obsession is because our communication organically shifted to a more visual realm - in part due to messaging apps, and video sharing, alongside the evolution abbreviations (brb, ttyl, etc.). Pairing this with humans natural affinity for the visual aspects of life, and you have a match made in heaven. Though this is nothing new, the phrase “A picture is worth a thousand words” has been around far longer than our means to digital communication. Psychologically speaking, emojis give us a greater ability to communicate emotions that are more subtle than the widely accepted six universal emotions: happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, fear, and disgust. Many scientists have found that there are 27 distinct dimensions, instead of six, needed to account for the way people are using emojis. In layman's terms, we were able to convey more clearly more complex feelings.
In today's world, using that digital communication, we are conversing with people from all over the world. Emojis earned their place in these conversations because they function similarly across possible language barriers while providing better insight into more subtle emotions.
In short, the obsession is real, and scientifically backed - meaning emojis aren’t going anywhere any time soon. What is our recommendation? Use them! Take advantage of the advanced communication options literally at your fingertips. Integrate them into your social media posts, into your marketing strategy.