The History Of The Emoji (HBO)

This segment originally aired on October 27 on VICE News Tonight on HBO.

The Museum of Modern Art in New York just acquired the original 176 character emoji set, from the late 90s, for its permanent collection. We interviewed one of its creators, Shigetaku Kurita, on how and why he came up with the characters, and when he knew they had taken over the world.

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[bookdream]

Why is it so cool to hate everything that's new and a part of pop culture? You're not cool because you hate emojis. It's just another way of expressing one's self and it's really interesting to compare the rise of emojis to ancient writing systems like logopraphs and pictograms rather then just dismissing them.

[Havermeijer]

Lol xD I love emoji's!! This *news* segment totally speaks to my young mind. Love the academic - historic approach to such an interesting and deeply valuable subject!

[drumr]

Im going to eat some member berries and think about the good old days when vice didn't completely SUCK

[ZALYPA_TIGRA]

Hey It's 2016 ! LET'S OVERHYPE FUCKING EVERYTHING

[thatactivechic]

That’s so true about the expressions based on manga through emojis. I like to keep I always capital and supply a period. Just complete the sentence. Texts are so quick but I do have a quick mind and always make mistakes or don’t reread my messages haha. I just 😅want the person to know what I’m saying by my abbreviations, emoji, or capitalization of the tone.

I get so much from Japanese Cartoon movies from the way faces or body movements is displayed.

[rdpll]

why so many bad reactions ? It's now part of how many humans communicate so it definitely has its place in a museum. Now this thing about Apple having democratised them, no I don't believe it

[bcg]

Emojis are for new kids who don't know how to use emoticons :D, they're a very effective way to say "Hey! I'm new to the internet, please ridicule me!'

[jennilee]

Remember when emojis where typed out? >:)

[nickt.]

Who the hell cares about emoji history? I want the old Vice News back that used to be in the field internationally getting documentaries on things the regular news doesn't, not mainstream social media analysis

[datadood]

Not even gonna watch this video. Just gonna leave this channel and never look back.

[sssnipermonkey]

Can I do part 2? Emojis: The Birth of a new language

[RedBloodedAmerica]

"It's central to the way we express ourselves." Oh, give me a break. Who writes this shit?

[ibexy]

Am surprised Britain didnt claim they invented it. Those guys founded rivers you never heard of in the remotest parts of Africa.

[Brommes]

Again Vice is completely off .. Crediting apple for emojis ?? everyone using computers since ascii has been using them ..

It's called "emojis" now but they existed way before there was a set made of them .. :), :/, :(, <3, *80) and so on is how they were made and STILL they translate into graphical emojis when used on most modern phones ..

It's complete falsehood to claim the history of them that is depicted here ..

[KDeDom]

so I guess we're just going to skip over the dark ages of using semi colons and parentheses?? : (

[BarryMahcockiner]

This is on Vice News... NEWS. Jesus Christ. The normal Vice channel spews out enough garbage already, without adding it to the Vice NEWS CHANNEL O_O

[nekture]

Are we ignoring that throughout the 90s we had emoticons?

[rayfordcarpathia]

Does Android and Apple use the same emojis?

[omgnuub]

"it's essential to the way we express ourselves" I've never owned a phone that supports emojis. Essential, you guys.

[Aeslyth]

what about MSM messenger or AOL? existed before a fucking iPhone lol.