'Emojis' Rule

Slated for release in August of 2017 will be the first full-length feature of emoji. To be entitled 'The Emoji Movie', the animated film is being produced by Sony Pictures Animation and will feature the round-headed figures that have become a staple in social media across the world.

Emoji (Japanese for 'picture word') is a computer language created to send lots of information in a small amount of data space.  Started in 1999 to help Japanese cell phone companies address the problem of people sending photos vs. text messages - as one photo takes up as much data as hundreds or thousands of text messages - the emoji was conceived.

The emoji has now gone from Japanese icon to global phenomenon and July 17th is now dubbed 'World Emoji Day'. The most popular emoji is the "face with tears of joy".

Emoji complement language and the day of the emoji becoming a language unto itself is fast approaching.  A grammatical system has been developed whereby text can be converted to emoji figures (a la Egyptian hieroglyphics) that is universal and will be shared by the estimated 6.1 billion cell phone users by 2020. Emoji are here to stay and will become a larger part of our lives, they are already being used for commercial purposes by any number of companies from Taco Bell to Coke.  All of the U.S. Presidential candidates have emoji and eventually everyone in the world will have there own emoji if the wish.

The Sony film will be similar in make and form as the Minion movie. My guess is it will be a hit and there will be sequels - as everyone who uses a cell phone knows what emoji are and has used them in there text messaging.