Bring electronic communications to life with Japanese emoticons
Japanese emoticons are used by both children and adults in Japan, and few emails are spared a hint of emoticons. This article will look at some interesting issues about how Japanese emoticons, or kaomoji, face characters as they are known in Japanese, are used in communication.
First, where did they come from? When the western smiley turned 25 there was quite a bit of press coverage, but what about Japanese emoticons? The story goes that around May 1986 (compared to September 19, 1982 for :-)) one of the first horizontal emoticons appeared in Japan, the now classic (^ _ ^), but it was invented by a Korean named Kim Tong Ho, but claims he saw a previous Japanese emoticon (~ _ ~) in a nuclear scientist post! The true origin of the Japanese kaomoji seems to be still shrouded in mystery.
Regardless of the story, for many adults, Japanese emoticons are an important part of communication. On a cell phone, about two in five use at least one on average, and about 14% use three or more. Due to their frequent use, almost everyone is used to seeing them, and only 1.3% of the population that uses cell phones is turned off by their presence in the received mail. Although mobile phones come with a myriad of built-in emoticons (even after 10 years I still have trouble understanding Japanese emoticons!), 36.5% choose to use their own set of custom emoticons to enhance or completely replace the emoticons built into cellphone.
In the computer world, these Asian emoticons are so popular (if not more so) because of a full-size screen that allows so much more room to let your imagination run wild, and some come close to being transformed into ASCII art. However, ASCII art is probably a misnomer, as these Japanese emoticons also use non-ASCII double-byte characters. The spiritual home of the Japanese emoticon is perhaps the world’s largest bulletin board site, 2 channel, whose unofficial mascot is Mona, a cat emoticon that sadly cannot be properly rendered here in ASCII text!
Not only on the mobile phone, but also when writing a standard computer email, Japanese emoticons are used and abused. A survey of the top thirty Japanese emoticons showed that the top five were, in reverse order, as follows: at number 5, m (_ _), an apology emoticon; number 4, (ToT) a crying emoticon; number 3, (^ _ ^;) a worried emoticon: the semicolon indicates sweat; at number 2, (> _ another worried smiley, but is more angry than embarrassed number 3; and at number 1, (^_^) or (^ _ ^) v smileys of laughter or joy.
As you can see, for both kids and adults, emoticons are a key part of expression, not only on mobile phones and email, but these Japanese emoticons can be found on instant messengers, bulletin boards, and now that they are becoming popular in Japan. , the emoticons for Twitter can be seen frequently. Try spicing up your communications with Japanese emoticons!
