Hot on the tails of GIF, selfie, and vape, the Oxford University Press’ lexicographers have made their decision on the word of 2015, and for the first time ever it is a pictograph, taking the form of the ‘Face with Tears of Joy’ emoji.
Emoji have existed since the late 1990s, when they were developed by a Japanese pager company as a way to entice younger users to the messaging service. But according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the monumental growth of their popularity in the last 12 months – spurred on by their integration into most messaging software – has meant they are the clear leader in a lexus of zeitgeist terms including: sharing economy, they (used to describe a person whose sex is unspecified), on fleek, ad blocker, refugee, Brexit, Dark Web, and lumbersexual.
The other contenders for this year's word of the year [OxfordDictionaries]
But why the ‘Face with Tears of Joy’ emoji and not, say, ‘Face with Hearts for Eyes’? Oxford University Press paired up with SwiftKey, a tech company that builds its own keyboard software for mobile devices, to explore the frequency and usage statistics of the most popularly-used emoji around the world.
SwiftKey identified that the ‘Face with Tears of Joy’ is the most commonly used emoji around the world, making up 20% of all emoji used in British instant messaging and 17% in the US.
The frequency of emoji usage in messaging services [OxfordDictionaries]
Earlier this month, Collins Dictionary named 'binge watch' its word of the year for 2015. Recently on The Right Hook, 'The Pop Slot' covered the history of emoji and how they are used in modern communication. You can listen back to the podcast below:
