New Book Explores Emoji’s Influence with Mixed Success

quick Summary

• Keith Houston’s book Face with Tears of Joy: A Natural History of Emoji explores the origins, evolution, and cultural significance of emoji.
• the book traces emoji’s roots back to 1980s Japanese computer hardware, earlier than their widely accepted birth around the turn of the millennium.
• Houston provides detailed research, examining Unicode Consortium meetings that standardized emoji across platforms.
• The book highlights socio-cultural questions raised by uniform visual interpretations across societies but critiques Facebook reactions during significant events for their lack of alignment with user emotions.
• Despite its rich history and engaging anecdotes-like early typewriter artists’ creations-the book leans heavily on chronology at the expense of deeper analysis into why emoji gained prominence and what implications follow.
• while thorough in documenting events like Kim Kardashian’s Kimoji app success or Unicode’s influence, much content feels overly padded rather than insightful.