Emoji Documentary Reveals Bureaucracy and a Lack of Transparency in Character Creation

Many of us haven’t thought much about where the word “emoji” comes from. (It’s Japanese for “picture character.”) Far fewer have given consideration to how emojis land in our smartphones in the first place—sometimes becoming more meaningful than a word or more powerful than punctuation. And, yet, what happens when there isn’t one to represent our actions, our emotions or even ourselves?