To you, this might mean explosion, or maybe you mistakenly used it for "fireworks" (there is a specific firework emoji, so now you know). Emojipedia says it's the "collision" emoji. It's also a great representation for a flare—and you probably had no idea that signal flares used by ships were patented in 1859 by one Martha Coston. She developed them by studying sketches her late husband, a naval scientist, had left behind. She eventually sold this technology to the U.S. Navy.
That's just one of the many inventor stories being told with—you guessed it—the help of emoji. The National Inventors Hall of Fame recently launched Emoji Invention, a site that uses the tiny Unicode characters to tell you about the people who created them (again, “them” being the thing symbolized by an emoji). The site creates faux text messages “from” the creator that include a short explanation of his or her work and the invention. Emoji Invention’s Emoji Menu currently displays 21 emoji for you to explore—hit the game controller emoji, and a “text” from Ralph Baer, who invited video games, surfaces. Click the Sun emoji, and you get a message about Maria Telkes, who created the science behind thermal storage systems.
The team decided to create Emoji Invention after realizing that while they were texting back and forth, many of the characters they were choosing were featured in the National Inventors Hall. “We scrolled through every emoji and worked with our curators to match the stories of those in our Hall of Fame,” says Monica Jones, Chief Operating Office of Invent Now (which is the parent company of the National Inventors Hall of Fame).
So why use emoji to talk about inventor history? Because the organization knows if you want to reach the people, you have to speak their language. “By utilizing emoji, we found a relevant way to showcase our inductees and exactly how their invention came to fruition—a story and piece of history that is not always top-of-mind, but we are able to bring to the surface by tapping into the ever-popular emoji trend,” Jones says.
The group doesn’t plan to leave Emoji Invention as a static site—and the recent new batch of emoji ushered in along with iOS 9 bodes well for its growth. “We are partnered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, and one of the things we are working closely with them on is the power of the progressive arts—or promoting the importance of taking existing patents and building upon them to create a new solution for something else.” Which makes it sound like, in very, very plain terms, that the Inventors Hall of Fame would like to use emoji to try and do what it can to address the industry’s attitude toward patents and trademarking. Jones offers an example, saying that Emoji Invention could include “texting,” and use the iPhone and the microphone emoji to talk about Jim West and Gerhard Sessler, who created the electret microphone.
“The more emoji added to iOS, the more content and opportunity we have to share the untold stories of some really inspiring people!” says Jones. Emoji Invention isn’t only intended to be an interesting website. Invent Now says that it’s going to be integrated into its STEM summer camp for youth—special attention will be given to the microsite in hopes of reaching the impressionable youth through their medium of choice.
I had to ask: Did the group think about choosing an emoji that represented emoji (the classic smiley maybe?) to make an entry for the inventor of emoji. "That would be funny!" says Jones. She says if the Apple employees who own the patent are one day inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, then it's a possibility. Until then, we'll keep an eye out for an emoji lesson on what beautiful genius invented the burrito.
