I used to be one of those uppity teens who detested the rise of emojis. Why should we forsake the English language for a small yellow frowny face? Now, however, when it doesn’t seem like we will ever understand each other despite a shared tongue, I can’t stop wondering what it would be like to abandon my phone completely for Sega’s upcoming Emojam “dumb pager” that can only send emojis to a few friends at a time.
The so-called “dumb phone” movement already has its adherents, and there are plenty of relatively cheap Barbie-branded flip phones or old Nokia reworks to help you cut yourself off from your social media fixations. These devices take things a step further. In a press release (read with machine translation), Sega says this device is trying to bring back the “pager culture” of the 1990s.
As a late-era millennial, I was too young to experience the “culture” of pagerdom. However, this device doesn’t send text or numbers but sends up to 1,100 “original” emojis over WiFi. You can arrange up to 10 emojis in a row to send to other Emojam users, which Sega likens to a secret code between friends. My personal secret code when texting friends is, normally, just the “🫠” emoji over and over.
However, you should know that the emojis on offer are not those most often seen in the West by the Unicode Consortium, which releases new emojis yearly. Sega’s images include Hello Kitty, of course, plus other characters I couldn’t possibly name. According to Sega, there’s even an “emoji lab” feature where you can mash together two emojis into one. These emojis in a row are supposed to relate to a kind of “puzzle solving” where friends guess your meaning. You can see it clearly on Emojam’s Amazon page, where hearts and arrows connect random character images to form a message.
The device is part of Sega’s Japanese-based kids brand LinkLink, so you can tell what kind of market these devices are geared toward. You can’t just connect with random people over the internet, either. You have to physically touch the butt ends of each device together to pair them with friends.
Once upon a time, Japan did indeed love its pagers. The Japanese language was more easily represented in short texts, or even numerical values, than English, which made it a simple and easy means of mass communication. Sadly, the good times didn’t last. The country’s last remaining pager services shut down in 2018.
The devices cost 7,150 yen, or about $46. They are supposed to include additional cases and beaded straps. Unfortunately, they’re only available in Japan, and they likely don’t include an English translation. However, I imagine if you can manage to import them, you won’t need to do much after setup, as all other communication will happen via emojis. The devices are supposed to arrive Dec. 10.
We’ll have to see if Sega ever decides to make a version specifically for the U.S. If the longtime Japanese game maker is smart, they’d let me send “🍺” emojis to my friends. I feel like I will use that emoji a lot to help me get through the next few years.
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