Emoji exhibition opens in Shanghai

World
Europe

An exhibition featuring emojis opened in a shopping mall in Shanghai over the weekend, which will run till the end of this month.

CFP Photo

Emojis were first created by Japanese Shigetaka Kurita in 1999 to express a variety of emotions, which later spread to the world, becoming a universal language and a tool for one to engage online with others without working their fingers much.

CFP Photo

In August 2014, Oxford Dictionaries Online listed ”emoji” as a new word.

‘Face with Tears of Joy’ emoji was chosen as the "Word of the Year" in 2015 by Oxford Dictionaries. /CFP Photo

A year later, it chose a pictograph, the ‘Face with Tears of Joy’ emoji (you know which one we're talking about), for the first time ever as the Word of the Year.

CFP Photo

According to reports, two billion smartphone users send six billion emojis every day, and more than 92 percent of Internet users use emojis.

CFP Photo

Even though emojis are designed to effectively express emotions when communicating via electronic devices, however, they do create misunderstandings sometimes, as some emojis are interpreted in different ways due to cultural or contextual differences.