[Ads-l] Moji (not "moji")

[Benjamin Barrett]

Nice follow-up, thank you.

It occurred to me this morning that “Moji” is not too far-fetched since emoticon is e-moji in Japanese. BB

> On 6 Sep 2016, at 10:37, Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> Note also the rise of "bitmoji" for personalized bits of comic art created
> by Bitstrips, recently acquired by Snapchat.
> 
> http://fortune.com/2016/03/24/exclusive-snapchat-buys-bitmoji-maker/ <http://fortune.com/2016/03/24/exclusive-snapchat-buys-bitmoji-maker/>
> 
> As with Skype's Moji, bitmoji don't really resemble emoji, though they can
> serve something of the same social function, providing image-based
> reactions or metacommentary to spice up a text-based conversation. At the
> very least, it demonstrates the availability of "-moji" as a kind of libfix
> (to use Arnold Zwicky's term), far removed from the original Japanese
> meaning of "moji."
> 
> --Ben
> 
> 
> On Tue, Sep 6, 2016 at 12:49 PM, Benjamin Barrett <mail.barretts at gmail.com <mailto:mail.barretts at gmail.com>>
> wrote:
> 
>> Skype (owned by Microsoft) has just added a series of extremely short
>> video clips (about three to four seconds) to augment their emoticons for
>> text chatting. They are taken from sources such as films and cartoons. For
>> example, you can send one of Miss Piggy saying, “’Tis moi,” at
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxprp-uGOEM.
>> 
>> They call these clips “Mojis” and please capitalize it because, well,
>> because it derives from a foreign word, I guess.
>> 
>> The word moji has occurred on this list at least in the form of mojibake (
>> https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mojibake, nothing on the Oxford
>> Dictionaries site). The word “moji” in Japanese simply means “glyph” (
>> https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/moji), making Skype’s usage opaque and
>> creating a false friend.
>> 
>> No official complete list is available of all the Mojis but they seem to
>> be overwhelmingly male. Skype seems aware of this problem as they have
>> issued a set (a classification scheme) called “Power Women.” They have also
>> issued Power Women emoticons.
>> 
>> A laudatory article on these Power Women glyphs (can a video be a glyph?)
>> can be seen at http://www.bustle.com/articles/165123-skypes-power-
>> women-mojis-emoticons-are-literally-changing-our-image-of-women.
>> 
>> What the article-writer seems to not notice is that the need for a Power
>> Women set instead of just emoticon/Moji sets that have a mix of men and
>> women is itself an indication that Skype remains stuck in an androcentric
>> mindset. Well, maybe it’s just that techies tend to be men and the best
>> roles in Hollywood also tend to go to men, and so none of their committees
>> thought about the issue. Whoops, that would be an indication that they are
>> stuck in an androcentric mindset….
>> 
>> It appears also that Skype has no emoticons or Mojis to represent non-cis
>> communities.
>> 


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