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What are Emojis?
Emojis are symbols you can use to represent emotions when sending text messages to people. Yellow smiley faces are some of the most common emojis. Sad faces, storm clouds, cars, hearts, and stars are all commonly used.
Today, Many Colors are Available
You are not limited to the yellow color today. You can choose a realistic human skin color if you want. You can make your emojis have nearly any human skin tone.
Changing your emoji's skin color is easy, is free, and doesn't require you to download anything. Your Android, iPhone, or iPad comes with this feature built-in.
How to Change the Color of Emojis on an Android
Changing the color on Android is easy - you just need to go through a few common menus. First, you should open up the messaging app you want to change the colors for. For example, open Facebook messenger to change the colors for that app.
Next, you need to open the on-screen keyboard. The on-screen keyboard is the usual keyboard you use to send text messages, so everyone has used it before. One great thing about on-screen keyboards is that you can enlarge them if you find it hard to tap the small keys.
Tap the Smiley Icon at the Lower Left
At the lower-left part of your on-screen keyboard, there is a smiley face icon. It is to the left of the space bar and below the Z, X, and C keys. If you tap the smiley face icon, the emojis you can use will pop up.
Look for a Downward Facing Arrow
You can only change the colors for emotion emojis and for hand emojis. If it is possible to change the color of an emoji, a downward arrow will appear beside it. Tap the downward arrow and make sure you hold it down for a bit of time, as a quick tap won't work here.
This will bring up several different icons that allow you to choose whatever skin color your smiley face emojis, fist emojis, thumbs up emojis, and more have. You can choose from several colors other than the regular yellow color. After you pick one, all emojis of that type should be the color you pick by default.
Can You Save the Changes?
The changes are automatically saved. When you turn your phone off and on again, your phone will remember what colors you chose. You can also change the colors again whenever you want.
Does This Work for All Messaging Apps?
Yes, you can change the color of your emojis regardless of which messaging app you are using. It works with Facebook, Telegram, Android messaging, and more.
How to Change the Color of Emojis on an iPhone
Changing the colors on iPhone is a bit different but even easier. There are even fewer steps with an iPhone.
First, bring up your on-screen keyboard. Then, tap the globe button. The globe button is the large button to the left of the U, H, B, and space keys.
Use the Emoji Keyboard to Change the Color
When you tap the globe button, the emoji keyboard will come up and will show you the emojis you can use. Tap on a face or hand emoji to bring the color menu up. Again, hold the button down a little after you tap.
When the color menu comes up, choose what skin color you prefer to the default yellow. Your iPhone will save everything automatically. It will always use that skin tone until you change it again.
How to Change Your Emoji's Skin Color on an iPad
Changing the color with an iPad is very similar to changing the color with an iPhone. Both the iPhone and the iPad use the same operating system.
First, tap the globe button and go to the emoji keyboard. Then, tap and hold an emoji that is either a face or a hand. Some other icons will appear that let you choose what color you want other than the default yellow.
How to Use Custom Memojis on an iPad
It is also easy to make custom emojis using an iPad. First, open messages and tap the compose button. The compose button is the square with the pen in it, which you always hit before you write a text message.
Then, tap the memoji button (an oval with a face in it) and then swipe to the right. There will be a button that looks like a + sign in a circle. That is the new memoji button.
This will bring up a menu that lets you customize your emojis. You can change the hair, eyewear, headwear, and facial hair.
Does this Work for All Emojis?
Unfortunately, it doesn't. Emojis showing faces with various emotions and hands can have their colors changed to whatever they want. However, an emoji of a globe, a car, a light bulb, or a star cannot have its colors changed.
This is because it would be a lot of work to make many different color schemes for each emoji. There isn't necessarily enough interest in multiple color schemes for every single emoji for companies to create them. Possibly, some more emojis will let you change the colors in the future, but it may never be all of them.
Why are Emojis Yellow by Default?
Possibly, it is because cartoon characters often have yellow skin. The Simpsons are yellow, and so is Spongebob Squarepants and many others.
Possibly, developers chose yellow-skinned emojis so that they would not represent people from any country. They did not want them to have the same skin color as people from anywhere in the world, so they chose bright yellow, similar to what some cartoon characters have.
However, it is more likely that the yellow color was chosen arbitrarily, and there is no real reason for it. They might also have chosen yellow because it is a cheerful color that suggests hope and happiness.
How Are Emoticons Different from Emojis?
Emoticons are not images, rather, they are bits of text people use to represent emotions. For example, :-) is a text smiley face and :-( is a text frowning face? They are both emoticons.
Emoticons have been around since before the world wide web existed. They were used on university computer message boards as far back as 1982. Emojis are much newer than emoticons and were invented by Shigetaka Kurita in 1999.
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