I have finished Correspondence. Let Me Just Use Sega’s ‘Emojam’ Pages Only For Emoji

I used to be one of those uppity teenagers who hated the rise of emojis. Why should we abandon the English language to have a little yellow face? Now, however, when it doesn’t seem like we’ll ever get along despite the shared language, I can’t stop wondering what it would be like to ditch my phone entirely for the upcoming Emojam “dumb pager” that can only send. emojis to several friends at a time.

The so-called “dumb phone” movement already has its followers, and there are plenty of cheap ones Barbie-branded phones or old Nokias reworked to help you cut yourself off from your social media fix. These devices take things a step further. In a press release (read with machine translation), Sega says the device is trying to bring back the “pager culture” of the 1990s.

As a recent millennial, I was too young to experience the “culture” of pagedom. However, this device does not send text or numbers but it does send up to 1,100 “original” emojis via WiFi. You can arrange up to 10 emojis in a row to send to other Emojam users, which Sega likens to a secret code between friends. My secret code when texting friends is usually the “🫠” emoji over and over again.

However, you should know that the emojis on offer are not the ones commonly seen in the West by the Unicode Consortium, which are. releases new emojis every year. Sega Pictures features Hello Kitty, of course, and other characters I can’t name. According to Sega, there’s even an “emoji lab” feature where you can combine two emojis into one. These series of emojis should be related to the type of “puzzle solving” where friends guess your meaning. You can clearly see it on Amazon’s Emojam page, where hearts and arrows connect pictures of random letters to make a message.

The device is part of Sega’s Japan-based subsidiary LinkLink, so you can tell what kind of market these devices are aimed at. You can’t just connect with random people over the internet, either. You have to literally touch the bottom ends of each device together to pair them with friends.

Long ago, Japan really loved its pagers. The Japanese language was more easily represented in short text, or even numerical values, than English, which made it a simple and easy way to communicate with many people. Sadly, the good times didn’t last. The country’s last remaining paging services were closed in 2018.

The devices cost 7,150 yen, or about $46. They should include extra cases and beaded straps. Unfortunately, they are only available in Japan, and probably don’t include an English translation. However, I think if you can import them, you won’t need to do much after the setup, since all other communication will happen through emojis. Devices should arrive on Dec. 10.

We’ll have to see if Sega ever decides to make a US-targeted version If the longtime Japanese game maker is smart, they’ll let me send “🍺” emojis to my friends. I have a feeling I’ll be using that emoji a lot to get me through the next few years.