France’s Favourite Emoji Is…
What is your relationship with emojis? Do you love ’em or hate them?
Do they visibly and succinctly say what you otherwise struggle to verbalise? Do you love them because they make your conversation pretty? Are they a quick and easy option instead of texting or do you think they are only used by lazy people?
The language of Emojis
So what do these little pictures say about us as individuals and to a wider extent even our country? Well, this is such an emerging area of modern communication that experts are still studying our use of them, debating whether they should be included in main stream dictionaries and creating job subscriptions for ’emoji experts’.
The New York Modern Museum of Act has recently purchased and is now displaying the first ever emojis, 126 of them, created by a Japanese phone company in 1999. This new artwork hangs beside works by Pablo Picasso and Jackson Pollock.
A breakdown of Emoji use by country
In a study undertaken in 2015 by the Swiftkey mobile technology company using its cloud data it found in summary that:
- The French live up to their reputation of the being the country of love by using more than four times as many heart emojis than other languages and it’s the only language where a smiley face is not the #1 emoji. Aah, we all knew it didn’t we? The amorous French!
- Canadians are the highest users of emojis that many might consider American, such as money, raunchy, violent and sport orientated emojis. Interesting but I’m sure not conclusive!
- Arabic speakers use four times more plant and flower emojis than the average rate. I love this display of peace and nature.
- Russian users use three times as many romantic emojis than the average rate. Oh, those Russians…
- Australians use double the amount of alcohol and 65% more drug themed emojis together with a lot of junk food and holiday emojis. My goodness… what does this say about my native country?
- Americans use a number of emojis to express themselves including the skull, birthday cake, fire, tech, meat, LGBT and female orientated emojis. Whew, what a diverse collection.
So there you have it, a brief cultural breakdown (according to the Swiftkey mobile technology company) of our use of emojis and what they are saying, or not saying, about our ourselves, our country and its culture.
Do you use emojis? What is your favourite one or most used ones? Below is a snapshot of my most used ones as at today.
World Emoji Day – 17 July
World Emoji Day is celebrated on 17 July each year. Have you noticed how the calendar emoji is 17 July?
This unofficial holiday celebrates the happiness emojis bring to people and promotes their use. The day is said to be a “global celebration of emoji” (World Emoji Day).
On previous years Apple have coincided the announcement of their new emojis on this day, Pepsi has released a limited edition emoji line of products and even Kim Kardashian has released new Kimoji fragrances. Social media shares use #WorldEmojiDay and @WorldEmojiDay to connect on this day.
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