June 18, 2014

The White House Won’t Comment on Whether President Obama Uses Emoji

Does he even emoji?<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/4877283964/">Pete Souza</a>/Flickr

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ABC News reports:

President Obama showed just how “hip” he was [on Tuesday] when he made a reference to emojis in a speech in Pittsburgh…”Now, to her credit, Malia, for example, wrote me a letter for Father’s Day, which obviously was a lot more important to me than if she had just texted a little emoji or whatever those things are.”

It’s unclear whether the president uses emojis himself, but with two teenager daughters in the White House, it’s likely that he’s come into contact with the popular animated characters sent via texts.

“President Barack Obama gave what was almost certainly the first public presidential statement on emoji,” Business Insider‘s Hunter Walker reports.

For the uninitiated, emoji are small digital images that originated in Japan. Approximately 250 new emoji are on their way. Last year, the Library of Congress added an emoji translation of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick to its collections. Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) made Senate history in March when his campaign used an emoji in a press release. Emoji is also quite possibly the most impenetrable form of NSA-proof communication.

The White House did not immediately respond to Mother Jones‘ request for comment on whether or not the president has ever dabbled in emoji.

(h/t Betsy Woodruff)

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