In the 1980's, emoticons became popular as typists used symbols to form smiley faces and winking faces and etc. to express emotion. Computer techs of the 1990's began designing graphics to upgrade the emoticon. Thus were born the emojis. The name, which has nothing to do with emotions, comes from the Japanese "moji," meaning “letter, character,” and "e," based on the ancient Japanese "ye," meaning “picture, drawing.”