By Berenice Freedome
If there’s a smartphone in your pocket, or your pocketbook, you’re probably familiar with emojis. They’re the little icons that brighten up dry digital messages with smiley faces and hearts, skulls and rockets. These little picture symbols are meant to convey an idea, a feeling, or an object—and they seem to work. For the first time ever, the Oxford Dictionaries’ Word of the Year for 2015 was not a word, but an emoji.
The ‘Face with Tears of Joy’ beat out “sharing economy,” “they (singular)” and “refugee”.
Where did these modern hieroglyphics come from, and what makes emojis so dang irresistible?
