Barack Obama Thanks Japan for Inventing Emojis

Unlike George Bush, who during his presidency said he had vaguely heard of “rumors on the Internets,” Barack Obama (or at least his speechwriters) doesn’t miss a chance to remind us of his knowledge of the Web. On Tuesday, the U.S. president received Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on an official visit to the United States. In his welcome speech, he thanked Japan for its contributions to American culture. There was a reference to the 1.3 million Americans of Japanese origin, but that wasn’t all. The American president also paid tribute to the elements of Japanese culture that have become famous in the West, pronouncing each word with a Japanese accent.

“Today is also a chance for Americans, especially our young people, to say thank you for all the things we love from Japan. Like karate and karaoke. Manga and anime. And, of course, emojis,” said the U.S. president.

Emojis, also called smileys or emoticons, were invented by Japan’s Shigetaka Kurita. He wanted to more easily convey emotions by SMS by combining multiple characters to form a symbol like a heart or a face. The Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo was the first to adopt the system at the end of the 1990s. Since then, these characters have spread beyond Japan and gained international fame.

Emojis were incorporated into telephones outside of Japan beginning in 2011, when Apple integrated them into the iPhone. Android and Windows Phone followed. As a sign of this internationalization, the faces of the smileys have become more diverse. Apple now offers faces with different skin colors. The original smileys, directly inspired by Japanese emojis, only showed people with fair skin. An initiative criticized by some, who thought that the smileys should have kept their iconic color, yellow, which allows some semblance of neutrality.

These little images have also become a separate source of commercial activity. Facebook uses them on its account through its “stickers,” in which users pay for some collections. Same thing in the emoji’s motherland: Line, the most popular instant message application in Japan, sold $56 million worth of emoticons in 2013.