Columnist Clare Palo writes about Bitmojis, the cartoon avatars that say everything you can't.
This past fall my good friend introduced me to the world of Bitmoji. Her family member made her a tiny cartoon avatar character over Thanksgiving, and from then on every message response for the next couple days was a sassy Bitmoji character.
But we were behind the times. I had never heard of Bitmoji then, and I’m still getting used to the idea now. Even one of my fellow Post staffers, who kindly made my Bitmoji for me, attempted to help me adapt to this foreign world. When a text reply won’t do, a Bitmoji image and phrase works even better.
Bitmojis are charming little emoticons that slightly (usually identically) resemble yourself. The app was created in 2014 by Jacob Blackstock, a Canadian genius. The Bitmoji revolution is an online, more excited and very peppy version of you. It’s your own emoji cheerleader, you could say.
To create a Bitmoji you can choose your face shape, eyes, hair color and length, nose and even outfit. From there, your avatar is saved and cartooned in the Bitmoji keyboard, which you can directly embed into your phone’s keyboard preferences.
My Bitmoji only mirrors me a little bit, although I could play around with it more to get the eyes and nose perfect. For the most part her hair, glasses, face shape and plain outfit are the essence of me.
Bitmoji updates its keyboard every week so users don’t get tired of the same ol' responses. It creates new Bitmoji stickers based on pop culture phrases and images (There is a Damn, Daniel Bitmoji, that we all secretly wanted).
The updates to the app cause controversy at times, if one outfit or body type size is taken away or changed, users feel that a part of their “identity” is also lost. Bitmojis essentially serve as many people's online alter ego. They can truly express their emotions digitally through text messages, where regular emojis and plain text can’t.
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I’m still trying to get on the Bitmoji bandwagon. I haven’t quite connected with the virtual version of myself just yet. But, Bitmojis allows users to express themselves in even cooler ways. Go ahead and create a Bitmoji caricature, maybe it’s the part of yourself you’ve been searching for.
Clare Palo is a senior studying journalism and digital content director for The Post. Do you have a Bitmoji? Tweet her @clarepalo or email her at cp954211@ohio.edu.
