emoji

Music & Culture

Oh! Darling: Sir Paul's Audible Emoji For Your Valentine

5:26am February 14, 2016

by Naomi LaChance

The former Beatle composed 10 five-second jingles to accompany Skype's love-themed emojis. They feature the sounds of his voice, a Moog synthesizer, guitar, harpsichord and other instruments.

The Unicode Consortium announced earlier this month that they are considering 67 new emojis to be released next summer.

National

Who Decides Which Emojis Get The Thumbs Up?

9:58am October 25, 2015

by NPR Staff

The Unicode Consortium decides which emojis live or die. As they prepare to release the next batch of emojis, we ask the emoji gatekeeper's president about the approval process.

Queue Listen Now

The Ad Council's latest anti-bullying campaign "I Am A Witness" focuses on a new emoji that combines an image of an eye with that of a speech bubble.

Education

Fighting Online Bullying, One Emoji At A Time

6:53pm October 23, 2015

by Alina Selyukh

The latest Apple iOS update includes a mysterious "eye-in-speech-bubble" emoji that has puzzled developers. The symbol is part of the Ad Council's new digital anti-bullying campaign, "I Am A Witness."

Comedian Aziz Ansari became a pioneer of emoji language use in 2011, when he transcribed the hit Jay-Z and Kanye West song, "Ni**as In Paris."

As Emojis Spread Beyond Texts, Many Remain [Confounded Face] [Interrobang]

6:32pm October 08, 2015

by Emma Bowman

There's a growing tendency to bring the tiny hieroglyphs off phones, but not everyone is fluent. New takes on emoji integration suggest misunderstanding may be remedied with universal translation.

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Jonathan Franzen, pictured here at The New Yorker Festival Fiction Night in 2009, won the National Book Award for his third novel, The Corrections.

Books
Arts

Book News: Jonathan Franzen's New Novel Poised For September Release

7:38am June 19, 2015

by Colin Dwyer

The book, titled Purity, promises an expansive sprawl and familiar themes, but also a few stylistic experiments. Meanwhile, Texas gears up for a hearing and final vote on much-debated textbooks.

SwiftKey analyzed more than a billion pieces of emoji data, organized by language and country. The poop emoji was most popular in Canada.

Canadians Love Poop, Americans Love Pizza: How Emojis Fare Worldwide

6:20pm May 04, 2015

by NPR Staff

A study analyzes more than a billion pieces of emoji data across 16 languages and regions to gauge how different nations communicate. Most emojis sent are happy faces and other positive symbols.

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Arts

Cooking With Emoji: We're Taking Eggplant Back From The Bros

2:39pm April 16, 2015

by Maria Godoy

The eggplant emoji has become a favorite of salacious sexters. To rescue its sullied rep, we turn to our emoji keyboards and conjure up recipes to highlight the fruit's, ahem, culinary attributes.