Why are emojis yellow?
Emojis can be a great way to express what we’re feeling without having to type about it. Sometimes, we try to lighten up a conversation by using these buggers which are slightly less annoying than minions. Vyvyan Evans, A professor of linguistics and communication, says that Emojis are the digital equivalent of body language. I think it makes sense because Albert Mehrabian, in his 7–38–55 rule, states that words make 7% of the impact for effective communication, how you say them accounts for 38% and the rest is down to body language. Facts aside, Why are emoticons / emojis yellow? Why not red, blue, or green (like the incredible hulk)? To really solve this mystery, we have to get to the root of the problem.
When the entire world was dabbling with emoticons like :-) and :-(, Japan introduced emojis which is an actual image. In 2011, Apple decided to roll out emojis on their devices internationally and before we knew it, they became a very popular element in our everyday digital life. Unicode consortium decides the shape and description of each emoji, although the color is not under their territory. The reason why Apple chose yellow is arbitrary. Based on my personal opinions and the findings I came across, It could be the same reason why animated characters are all yellow in color — Spongebob Squarepants, Pikachu, and of-course Minions where all of these characters are seen as happy and joyous.
Fun fact: Evil minions are purple because purple and yellow are on the opposite sides of the spectrum! Whoooosh, right?
It could also be that the yellow color gave a better contrast than the other primary colors like blue, red or green. There is no definite answer as to why the emojis are yellow in color.
According to Huffington Post, Unicode recently rolled out racially diverse emojis where the emojis derive the skin tones from the Fitzpatrick scale, which is a recognized tool for dermatological research about skin color.
