Emoji continue to play a pivotal part in users’ day-to-day messaging, and now it looks like they’re starting to grow up.
Facebook has announced that it has begun rolling out a series of new emoji for its Messenger app that lets users customize them to their liking, including changing the color of their skin, as well as diverse types of characters like red-headed emoji and female characters in roles like police officers and doctors.
“Emoji have changed the way we talk to each other—whether it’s a smiley face to show you’re happy, a thumbs up, or a pizza when hungry, emoji are a fun, easy way to express yourself when words just aren’t enough—and people love them! In fact, nearly 10 percent of mobile sends in Messenger include emoji. However, not all platforms have kept up with emoji standards as they’ve evolved—which means sometimes the emoji you wanted to send wasn’t the one that showed up. Nor are they living up to the gender and skin tone diversity that we see in our world everyday,” Facebook stated in a recent post.
The posts aren’t just based on diversity, but also effectiveness, with little technical error. “Messenger is addressing emoji woes by rolling out a new set of standardized emoji so you can be sure you’re sending the right message. No matter what emoji you pick, it will now look the same for all Messenger users, regardless if the recipient is on Android, iOS or another platform. In other words, no more broken-looking black boxes or emoji that just don’t make sense. Our characters are consistent every time you use them, no matter what platform the recipient is on.”
In short, “We’re diversifying the genders to create a more balanced mix that’s more representative of our world,” the company noted.
The emoji are presented in a uniform set, making it easy to select which ones users want to use when it comes to expressing themselves through Facebook’s services.
The popularity of emoji extends beyond Facebook. Motorola recently introduced a new campaign called #ShatteredStories that focuses on saddened characters after they accidentally drop their phones, which is an advertising point for the brand’s Droid Turbo 2, which features a shatter-proof screen.
If that weren’t enough, Sony has also introduced The Emoji Movie, set for release sometime next year with a focus on the characters, and Pepsi recently launched a promotion with five-second ads featuring animated emoji on its bottles.
