U+1F602: The Word of the Year

In 2015, for the first time ever, The Oxford University Press chose a pictograph as their Word of the Year — the ‘Face with Tears of Joy’ emoji. We have seen a dramatic change in how we communicate digitally with one another and we have already begun to construct a new alphabet that transcends existing languages. Emoji offer a tone-of-voice for a medium that has no tone and no voice. The codes behind each icon are designed to be read, transferred and decoded into pre-defined images users can see. Each one can be displayed on various operating systems, but in many cases there is room for miscommunication. U+1F602 aims to highlight the growth of this universal language and investigate the rise of Emoji.