Dwayne Joseph, Jr.
Staff Writer
“We finally have emojis that look like us and it’s hilarious,” said Sha’Kema Harley, a sophomore social work major from Birmingham, Ala.
Black Emojis, something that many students on the campus of Jackson State have been waiting for, became a reality with the most recent Apple iPhone update.
The new update included emojis that came in a diverse range of ethnicities and alternative family and relationship structures. Apple has been using emoji technology since 1999.
Many students were excited about the new emoji selections.
“It is more diverse and they have different country’s flags making using emojis much more comfortable to use,” said Haston Buckley, a freshman business management major from Dallas, Texas.
Kymario Broady, a freshman environmental science major from Memphis, Tenn. said, “I enjoy the options of changing the race of some of the emojis which makes it much more diverse. The Apple ios 8.3 update seems to meet the needs of an abundant amount of people from different races to different sexual preferences.”
Morris Bowman, a junior history major from Itta Bena, Miss., stated that he never thought Apple would reach this point in present day technology.
“You would think that the when Steve Jobs first created the iPhone, that there would be all kinds of emojis of different color. And after almost 15 years, there are finally black emojis that we can use on our iPhones or android devices,” said Bowman.
Emojis originated in Japan were cell phone users used picture messages as a way to communicate in shorthand. According to www.iemoji.com, as a result, mobile phone companies started noticing the trend because the mobile operators were struggling to support the needs of 80 million users of a rapidly growing technology. Engineers were told to fix this problem, thus the birth of emoji.
Tiara Turner, a freshman physics major from Memphis, Tenn., is excited about the new emojis.
“I think having black emojis gives us a personal feel as black people. It sounds funny because of the fact that the emojis are black. It even sounds weird saying it, black emojis,” said Turner.
Since the release on April 9, there has been some negative uproar about the newly released emoticons from Apple.
Eric Barber, a junior physical education major from Leland, Miss., said, “I mean, I’m excited about black emojis like the next black person but now there will be so many racial slurs, offensive texting going on, and outrageous Instagram posts.”
Edgar Johnson, a freshman Computer Engineering major from Chicago, Illinois, states “It’s pretty straight; I’ve enjoyed it very much. I like the versatility so it makes it much easier to express yourself through the use of the new emojis now.”
As with most iPhone updates, stay tuned for updates to fix problems with the new update.
Byranne Delgado contributed to this story.
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