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Words not needed: New ’emojli’ social network only allows emoji

Social media fanatics hopelessly addicted to checking out every app that lands on the platform will be dismayed to learn that yet another one is about to launch, one so odd that you won’t be able to resist downloading it to see what it’s all about.

As its name almost suggests, emojli will allow you to park the linguistic part of your brain and dive straight into the bit that holds all the shapes and colors and pictures.

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You got it – communication is by emoji only, a feature that opens up all sorts of exciting cross-border possibilities, with language differences no longer an obstacle as you make new friends with a vast array of global citizens from Azerbaijan to Zambia.

Is this some sort of pathetic joke? I hear you ask. Well, it seems not, as its creators – Brits Matt Gray and Tom Scott – promise it really is coming soon (to iOS first). According to emojli‘s Twitter feed, already more than 10,000 people have signed up (username has to be an emoji, of course), which by my calculations suggests at least 10,000 people are interested in giving it a try.

So why emojli and why now?

Well, according to its promo video (below), “social networks are broken,” overloaded with spam, trolls, memes and hashtags. Therefore, “it’s time for something simpler.”

Gray and Scott say there’s no spam with emojli “because there isn’t an emoji for spam,” and reassure its users that the worst message they’ll ever receive is a pile of poop (in emoji form, obviously).

They continue: “We know what you’re thinking. This is satire. No one would actually make this thing. It’s not. And we have.”

Thinking about it, emojli could certainly take off in Asia (the birthplace of emoji), where skilled emoji users in some countries chat with ease without the need to call upon things like words. And if the two guys behind emojli introduce extras like sticker sales to their app, they could quite possibly make some serious money out of this unique idea. Or not.

[DT’s 5 things you should know about emoji]

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
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