For a couple of years now, there have been calls for emojis that are multicultural and fully capture the diverse global audience that use messaging services. The Afro Emoji application — developed by a Nigerian-American team led by Ayoola Daramola — is the latest addition to the demand, available now on both Android and Apple devices.
Different cultures seem to require different emoticons. Western emojis are easy to differentiate from their Japanese counterparts. A behavioral scientist at Hokkaido University in Japan, Masaki Yuki points out that in Japan, people tend to look to the eyes for emotional cues, while Americans look at the mouth.  Daramola’s Afro Emojis aim to capture the “idiosyncratic way” Africans have of communicating with each other. It should be noted that there has been another app launched that shows African emojis by Oju Africa. Oju Africa took a different approach, making standard yellow emojis we are familiar with in darker skin tones. The Afro Emoji app on the other hand features Nigerian and Ghanaian expressions next to characters clad in different kinds of traditional dress. However, do these stickers really encompass the way Africans talk?
 

Read more at MUI Daily News (press release) (blog)