Speculation about what social network could replace Facebook and Twitter is a moot discussion at this point. But what could evolve or change our use of emoji—the omnipresent symbols that will soon get new additions to their family? The next step in the emoji revolution could possibly arrive in the form of emoj.li, the emoji-only social network that removes words from the equation entirely.We’ve seen emojis combine to form larger pictures, had our usage of the icons psychoanalyzed, and even survived an emoji vortex, but this is an ambitious step forward for the ubiquitous, cartoonified language. In its introductory video, released today, the upcoming social network claims to be the antidote for everything wrong with modern social networks, from soulless trolls to bad hashtags.
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“There is no spam, because there isn’t an emoji for spam,” proclaim Matt Gray and Tom Scott, the creators of emoj.li. “No bloody ‘forward this to ten people memes,' no stupid hashtags.” If you think it sounds too good to be true—or too silly to be serious—Gray and Scott firmly assert that you’re wrong. They deny that the project is satire, and assure their audience that they’ve already built the network, which will launch on iOS soon, shortly followed by other platforms. You can already reserve your username which—no surprise—must be completely composed of emojis.It’s an interesting concept for a social network, particularly since a large portion of the criticism Facebook and Twitter face often regard the meaninglessness of messages with few words or thought. Emoj.li is steering into the skid, removing words all together in favor of the emotion-capturing pictures. Users will have to adapt to the fact that, with no words, the entire community will exist without links, utterly cut off from the expansive social ecosystem of Web 2.0. The flip side of the situation is that its sole purpose will be for human communication at its basest, simplest, most, well, emotive level. Emoji.li could be viewed as digital return to the age of cave paintings, but where information exchange is limited to whatever symbols the Unicode Consortium offers to the smartphone-wielding masses.We don’t know whether it’ll catch on, and grow to be a platform that offers a unique and useful experience. Even if Gray and Scott don’t intend it as satire, it may be impossible for the wider web to see it as anything but a joke. On the other hand, we’ve reserved the username Smiling Face With Horns/Smiling Face With Halo/Unamused face. We're willing to see what people do when their keyboards are replaced with face boards. Like Facebook and Twitter before it, perhaps emoj.li will surprise its skeptics.
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