Emojis Among Us

emoji NOUN (plural same or emojis)

A small digital image or icon used to express an idea, emotion, etc., in electronic communication:
'emoji liven up your text messages with tiny smiley faces’

Origin
1990s: Japanese, from e 'picture' + moji'letter, character'.
(Oxford Dictionaries Online)

[image from his Twitter account]

Shigetaka Kurita created the first emojis back in the late nineties when he was working on the "imode", the first internet platform from NNT docomo.

"Kurita says he thought it would be difficult to deliver enough information on feature phones due to the limited screen space without emoji. 'Prior to our i-mode, AT&T was already offering information services for cell phone users. Everything was shown by text. Even the weather forecast was displayed as fine. When I saw it, I found it difficult to understand', recalls Kurita. Japanese TV weather forecasts have always included pictures or symbols to describe the weather—for example, a picture of sun meant sunny. Being so familiar with this culture, Kurita thought 'I'd rather see a picture of the sun, instead of a text saying fine'. " [source]

It seems Kurita not only wanted to express things but rather to create a new universal alphabet, inspired by manpu symbols from Manga and pictograms.

MANPU [pict source] PLUS

PICTOGRAMS EQUALS

EMOJIS

It's evident some of these symbols are more related to the Japanese culture and though Kurita establishes in this article the precedent of the kanji ideograms (here's a nice translator e.g. 芸術家 / Artist kanji), the use of these are now pretty universal. 

Emoji Among Us: The Documentary from Dissolve on Vimeo.