Emojli offers little practicality for users

It’s safe to assume that pretty much anybody reading this article will interpret the combination of a colon and closed parenthesis as a “smiley” face. Created in 1963 by American advertising man Harvey Ball, the “smiley” face entered the world of typography in 1982 as an iconic yellow circle with two black eyes and a perfectly round smile.

Now, the evolution of the happy face has progressed one step further with Emojli — the world’s first emoji-only social network that is slated to go viral. The wordless social network is now available on iOS.

While the concept of Emojli is simple and novel enough, the idea is wrought with complex negative implications. The trailer video states, “Now, we know what you’re thinking. This is satire. No one would actually make this thing. It’s not, and we have.” The very fact that the creators needed to clarify this points at the red flags the novel app raises. In a culture where people are taught from a young age to “use their words” and essay writing is a core component of primary education, this concept is definitely unconventional.

In this technological age, the birth of a platform such as Emojli seems all but inevitable, but there appears to be little to gain for the average texter. Though emoji, the pictorial language of emoticons and simple graphics, has gained incredible momentum in recent years, its practicality is limited. It’s true that emojis provide users with the ability to personalize technology, infusing black-and-white typography with a little zest, but this personalization has a price. According to Luke Stark and Kate Crawford’s essay “The Conservatism of Emoji,” corporations such as Facebook have already capitalized on this phenomenon, utilizing emoji for data tracking.

As Stark and Crawford pointed out, emoji homogenizes written expression by limiting the user to a finite selection of images. In providing emojis representing only a handful of items or types of people, the creators have inadvertently promoted and normalized a limited amount of behaviors and lifestyles. For example, on the current iOS platform, there is a distinct lack of diversity among the emojis representing human beings. For one, almost all of the female emojis wear pink.

Moreover, emoji undermines the flexibility of the written word. Sending a small graphic image can be the easiest way to convey tone, but emoji-speak can only be so personal. Instead of inserting a sparkling pink heart at the end of a message, someone messaging a loved one should actually convey their feelings using a phrase of their choice. Anyone can send their love interest a kissing smiley face, but every person uses written language in a unique way. In this manner, communicating in emoji is like piecing together a collage of someone else’s images rather than creating something completely original.

Even if emoji is harmless, there remains one gaping hole in the argument for Emojli. As unique a concept as Emojli might be, it might very well prove to be utterly useless. Business and technology news websites, including Wired and Business Insider, are drawing comparisons between Emojli and Yo, which allows users to tap a friend’s name and cause the friend’s phone to exclaim, “Yo!” Despite its apparent pointlessness, “Yo” made headlines when investors pledged $1.2 million toward the app’s development. All the while, downloads skyrocketed, setting the stage for future apps with similar aesthetic and novelty appeal. Even if Emojli receives similar attention and becomes a fad in its own right, it may prove to be just that, a fad that comes and goes, leaving no significant impact on written language.

Fad or phenomenon, good or bad, the effect of emojis and programs such as Emojli are certainly worth mentioning. Despite their inhibiting nature, emojis are on the rise. Its popularity lies in a subconscious desire for simplicity in an age of information overload, or perhaps it is just a side effect of a technology addiction, taking its roots in a need for instant creative gratification. A drawing can take hours, but an emoji creation only takes minutes, maybe seconds. Whether or not this growing language is something to humanize machines or mechanize humans, it is more important than ever that members of the technological age find the time to break free from the world of screens and symbols to decide which brands of social interaction are truly worthwhile.