CHAPTER 5 – EMOJI AND OTHER INTERNET GESTURES

PART 1 – introduction + What are emoji for?

- Emoticons and emoji represent a dynamic system of

communicating online, they can be compared to gesture (every
culture that’s been studied has gestures)
- However, many emoji don’t correspond to equivalent gestures
(examples: the eggplant emoji or the fire emoji): these emoji are
known as emblems
- Why did emoji caught on so quickly? Because they gave us an easy
way of representing the functions behind the gestures that we use
in our informal communication
- Emblems are arbitrary and culturally specific (example: the thumbs
up emoji has an obscene meaning in many Arabic-speaking
countries – “sit on this”)
- Emoji fragmentation: different app or device manufacturers were
displaying the same emoji with different designs
- Emoji aren’t the only way to express emblems in internet
communication, there are at least 2 other ways doing that: 1)
sending messages overlaid on top of a photo you’ve just taken
(using your own face as emoji) and 2) using gifs
- Both gestural and digital emblems participate in cycles of
appropriation from African American culture – black people are
overrepresented in gifs used by nonblack people, especially those
showing extreme emotion
- Repetitive gestures are known as beats, emoji have the same
rhythmic tendency as beat gestures