From the heart to the flamenco: the language revolution

From the heart to the flamenco: the language revolution

   A smiling face, a heart, a silent monkey ... or an eggplant. Perhaps writing is a strange enumeration, but if these words are translated into a small image of 12 x 12 pixels and Unicode format they are understood in Spain, the United Kingdom, Japan and China. They are the famous emoji, who have jumped from smartphones to everyday life. A link between countries that came together with the Japanese Shigetaka Kurita in 1999 and that every July 17 is celebrated on Emoji Day.

   However, the choice of this date is not the true birth of these little symbols. The choice is a bit arbitrary, according to the Emojipedia, encyclopedia network about the most famous images of the Internet. The answer is Apple and its calendar that marks July 17. The choice was made by Jeremy Burge, the founder of the online encyclopedia, "emojis are the best way to add personality to a purely textual conversation," he explains.

The conversations are composed of: 7% for words, 38% for the tone of voice and 55% for gestures, body and facial expressions. That 55% of added value is lost in the technological conversations and that "they try to replace the emojis", the experts point out. A new way of communicating that allows you to convey what you want to say without complications.

Emojis "allow an informal message to convey emotions and feelings that are difficult to translate into phonetic writing," explains Marcel Danesi, professor of semiotics at the University of Toronto and author of a book on the subject. The use of these small images come to "modify the brain of users," according to a study by the magazine Social Neuroscience in 2015.

   Despite uniting cultures and cities, as expected by its creator in the late 1990s, each country has a preferred use. In Spain, the face that launches a kiss reigns, followed by the one who cries with laughter and heart, according to Tiny Books, the system that transforms WhatsApp messages into books.

The study, based on more than 22 million emoticons sent only on the messaging platform of Mark Zuckerberg, reveals the Latin and happy character of the Spaniards. The most used Top 10 refers to smiling emojis.

Globally, the most used is the smiley face with tears, according to the University of Michigan. The heart, the kiss with a heart or the face with hearts in the eyes are also very used. The French are the most emoticons use, with a presence that reaches almost 20% of messages, well above Spain, with 3.1%.

Visual language

Last 2015, the Oxford Dictionary chose 'emoji' as the word of 2015. In Spain, the Fundéu defines it as "graphic emotions". The 12x12 pixels of Kurita also have their own 'academy' that regulates and accepts the use of new images. Unicode Consortium is a non-profit organization in charge of replacing character coding standards. Among its members are large technology corporations Adobe Systems, Apple, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle Corporation and Yahoo!

This summer the arrival of the latest update of Unicode 10.0 is expected with 8,518 new emojis . From the smiling face of Kurita and his 175 companions has been passed to 136,690 small images that already incorporate paellas, zebras, dinosaurs or mermaids.

A new language adapted to the new generations and that drags thousands and thousands of euros behind. The famous smiling face was born arrived at the mobile hands of Kurita, but his birth dates from the sixties, although it was not until the 70 when he began to generate profits.

Harvey Ball, graphic designer, took ten minutes to generate this little smiling face to alleviate the fear of layoffs due to the merger between State Mutual Life and Guarantee Mutual Company. He charged $ 45, but made the mistake of not registering it. Something that Franklin Loufrani did in 1972.

The Smiley Company

On Saturday, January 1 of that year, Loufrani wanted to convey a bit of happiness at a time when they seemed to dominate the bad news. That New Year's Day, the French newspaper France Soir printed the now emblematic logo to highlight the good news.

In a short time, the Smiley Company brand was born and is currently one of the 100 most important licensing companies in the world, with more than 260 licensees that generate an annual turnover of more than 265 million USD and sell More than 23 million products every year.

The Smiley trademark is registered in more than 100 countries and in more than 13 product categories. Now every brand of clothing, every marketing campaign that uses this little face pays its royalty that generates more than 1,000 million dollars a year.

A new economy after a small symbol that has crossed frontiers of art and the first 177 emojis of Kurita, at the beginning of the year, were incorporated into the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.