Have you ever spent hours thinking about an emoji that was sent to you? Trying to make sense of it and/or attaching new meaning to it? Trying to see symbols within symbols or personal meaning of you who are in character form. Maybe it is about who you are and sometimes who you aren't. In the current digital age, emojis are the voices of people. These little visual symbols have a big world which consists of infinite meanings. They aren't just for communicating, they’ve become an accessible symbol of activism, sexual identity, and politics.

The feature documentary The Emoji Story premiered at Tribeca 2019 as Picture Character and screened at AFI Docs, Sydney Film Festival, HotDocs, and Woods Hole Film Festival, where it received critical acclaim. It opened up intriguing questions and re-shaped our perception of emojis. People can discover the creation and cultural impact of an ever-evolving digital language and see the struggle of the people behind these emojis that make them more inclusive.

Journalist, entrepreneur, and also the producer of the film Jennifer 8. Lee is the co-founder of Emojination, a group whose motto is “Emoji by the people, for the people,” and she’s also the vice-chair of the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee. She is one of the people who seek to add new emojis to the Unicode set like 'woman with hijab' for representing more diversity since she thinks people are exposed to different concepts of emojis before even they read or write. We talked to Jennifer 8. Lee who is the producer of The Emoji Story about the documentary, emojis, and her career. Please read our exclusive interview below to learn more about her and emojis.

Where are you based?
COVID has thrown everything up in the air. When lockdown happened, I was in NYC, which was super eerie when the streets were empty. The last few months, I have been moving through the mountain west with friends while coworking. I was in Park City, Utah; then Jackson Hole, Wyoming; and then Yellowstone, Bozeman and Missoula in Montana.

You are a producer, journalist, entrepreneur, and woman who has accomplished great things at a young age. How do you see your career journey?
I look at my LinkedIn sometimes and think how eclectic it looks! People will comment on how long it is. But I follow my passions, which takes me in many different directions — including joining the Unicode Consortium to help regulate emoji. I studied applied math and economics in college, so this isn’t exactly what most people who had my major ended up doing.

The Emoji Story opened up intriguing questions and re-shape our perception of emojis. How did you go about producing a documentary about emojis?
The documentary was created in parallel with my own curiosity journey about emoji. When I discovered the Unicode Consortium in 2015, I texted Ian Cheney, the director I worked with on The Search for General Tso.

How was the process of making this documentary?
When you do verité documentary, you are following things real time, so don’t know how things will end. It’s not like doing a historical documentary with talking heads. So we had to balance finding subjects that were visual, compelling and diverse! There were some storylines that didn’t pan out, including an earthquake emoji and a cannabis emoji. But in the end, we were really happy with the range of folks we followed.

Did you expect this massive success?
Emoji is a topic that is very close to people’s hearts, everywhere. People have such a personal relationship with the emoji on their phones, and the ones they use a lot. So we were definitely hoping that people would be intrigued by it, especially around the world.

How does this documentary evolve your sense of communication and personal life?
The documentary forces us to think hard to come up with insights. One of the things that had puzzled me from my work on the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee was why so many requests came from people trying to get emoji which resembled them — hijab, curly hair, red hair, beard, skin tones. This was very counter to the idea of emoji originally just being a generic “person” — often with yellow skin. People really really wanted granular representations.

My big revelation about this came during an interview with Indiana University professor Susan Harrington. She basically said that in emoji, while there were emoji worked well with nouns which were objects, or verbs were actions, there were gaps in making it a full language. And then she said, for example, there wasn’t a way to say “I” and “You”, and I realized that all these people were struggling for an emoji that looked like them to say “I.” We have solved the “you” problem with our 2022 release of emoji, we think.

Another interesting fact is that there is a generation of kids who are learning to “read” and “write” emoji before they can read and write in their native languages.

You describe Emojination as an emoji for the people, by the people. Can you explain this more?
We see our role at Emojination as getting the voice of the people in the room (now in the Zoom!) with the large U.S. tech companies on issues of emoji. We are the interface that allows them to maneuver through a somewhat bureaucratic and technical process where specific knowledge helps. We can sometimes help them shape proposals we think are promising. But I think it’s just nice to have a friendly voice in a Slack to welcome people who are passionate.

We learned that your dumpling emoji was approved in 2016, along with chopsticks, a fortune cookie, and a takeout box. What does it mean to you in terms of your enthusiasm for making inclusive, representative emojis?
Those four emoji were the first I got approved and were largely tied to my work with my book, The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, which is on how Chinese food is all American. It was amazing to think that I had a small role in the two millennia-long history of the dumpling by getting it encoded into the emoji. It’s also amazing whenever I see someone use one of those emoji in their name on Twitter or Instagram, as it means they really identify with the emoji.

Emojis aren't just for communicating, they’ve become an accessible symbol of activism and politics over this past decade. For instance, rose is usually used by Democratic Socialists or Republicans use elephant emoji. How do you see the effect of emojis on politics?
Actually one of the emoji we have tried very hard to get through is the DONKEY emoji, in part pushed by people who wanted to balance the ELEPHANT emoji. The problem was that it looked a lot like a horse, even though the ears are longer, so we’ve been trying to work our way through that.

But in general, it’s great that people find political meaning in emoji around the world.

You want emojis to show an inclusive and diverse world. For instance, in the documentary, we see the desire for a hijab emoji. Do you think seeing more diversity in emojis can change people's prejudices?
There is a whole generation of kids who are beginning to read and write emoji before they can read and write their native languages, so being exposed to different concepts visually — whether hijab or arepa or hamsa — at a young age means it will always be part of their world. Even if they might not see one in IRL, they now it matters and is part of a larger world.

How about emotions and the subconscious? Do you think emojis help us to better communicate emotions?
Emoji are good at preserving ambiguity between the sender and the receiver. For example, the upside down smile emoji 🙃 can be interpreted in all sorts of ways. And if you look on Google, two of the top searches are “what does it mean if a guy sends 🙃” and “what does it mean if a girl sends 🙃?” There is no one answer, so it’s fascinating to see people grapple with the sender’s intentions.

The documentary also focuses on those who are trying to promote more diversity by making period emoji. We still see the slowest progression in gender equality emojis and the issue of gender stereotypes perpetuated by emojis. Still, do you think there are any positive gains by the name of gender equality?
A certain vigilance has led to more balanced representation of women in the emoji set compared to the legacy emoji from the Japanese telecomm companies. For example, there are now female occupations whereas until 2016 the only roles a woman could have on the emoji keyboard were princess, bride, dancer and Playboy bunny. Google’s team took the lead in that.

Then there is now woman’s flat shoe and one piece swimsuit (in contrast to the polka dot bikini, which was highly sexualized and not appropriate for when children went swimming). Those were pushed by a mother of four.

The blood drop is another one we feel good about.

We see many different people such as linguists, designers, emoji activists in the documentary. How was the collaboration with them?
The range of people who are passionate about emoji is fantastic, and it’s great to give them an outlet for their passion.

Which emoji character would you say you identify with the most?
I like the girl 🙋🏻‍♀️ who is raising her hands. It’s like saying hello!

What other projects are you working on right now?
A documentary on AI. I’m a Sundance Sloan Fellow for a TV project on the Harvard Computers, a group of women who played a key role in early astronomy at Harvard over a four-decade span starting in the late 1800s. I do work on misinformation through the Credibility Coalition. I also run a digital publishing company.

How are you staying positive during a shelter in place?
We’re done with shelter in place technically, I think, but I’ve been spending the last three months or so in Utah, Montana, Idaho and Wyoming co-working with friends. If you don’t have to be.

What is your motto in life?
Not a motto, but an equation: Happiness equals reality minus expectations. So when expectations exceed reality, you get negative happiness or unhappiness.

Also: Work with low drama high competency people.

To learn more about Jennifer 8. Lee, please follow her via the below platforms:
jennifer8lee.com
Twitter: @jenny8lee
Instagram: @jenny8lee

Photography Credits: Utopia Media

The Emoji Story: Emojis As The Voice Of The People