July 2021 - Beadmail No. 4
BEADMAIL No. 4
Retail Price: $90
Photo Credit: Tran Linh
July 17 is “World Emoji Day” when we celebrate those fun little faces, animals, hand gestures, sports figures, bacon strips and vegetables that liven up our texts and express our emotions and personalities. This specific date was chosen due to the calendar emoji on Apple products that always showed July 17 (the date Apple created its calendar application). Apple customers began calling July 17 “World Emoji Day” and it caught on worldwide.
Emojis are worth celebrating too! So much of our communication today is electronic, especially as we work from home or from offices spread around the globe. With FaceTime, Zoom, or Skype, you can see people’s expressions onscreen, read their body language (sometimes embarrassingly), and hear their voices for the emotional context to their words; but with text only or emails there is little nuance to the blunt typed sentences. Emoticons emerged to provide some emotional clues. :) <3 But it still wasn’t enough.
Emojis to the rescue!
In the 1990’s, Nokia phones began to include pictograms they called “smileys and symbols”. By 2015, the Oxford Dictionary recognized the “emoji” for its impact on popular culture, saying, “traditional alphabet scripts struggle to meet the rapid-fire, visually focused demands of 21st century communication; it’s not surprising that a pictographic emoji script has stepped in to fill those gaps. It’s flexible, immediate, and infuses tone beautifully”.
Researchers analyzing billions of messages have found that “Face With Tears of Joy” is the most popular emoji in the world. The “Heart” and “Heart Eyes” are second and third most popular.
French people use the heart emoji the most; people in Australia and the Czech Republic use the most positive emojis, while people in Mexico and South America use the most negative ones. In China, emoji are used subversively with the smiley face conveying a mocking attitude. In North America, the eggplant and peach emojis are used to suggest body parts.
Top Ten emojis also include "smiley faces" that are winking, weeping, or wearing sunglasses, and the hand gestures “thumbs up” and the “the bird”.
To celebrate “World Emoji Day” -- and all the days you express your love, laughter, surprise, or cool - OHM offers this pictogram bead of popular emojis. You will delight in the little surprises tucked within the groups and you’ll smile with recognition at some personal favorites.
It’s been said in many languages that “a picture is worth a thousand words” and the endless possibilities of emoji expression are proof indeed.
Express yourself! And Happy World Emoji Day!
