Hands-on with Emojli, the emoji-only messenger

Today I joined Emojli.

Months ago, I was one of the 70,000 people who claimed an emoji-only username — an emojiname? — for the comically niche emoji-only messaging app. Yep, you can’t use words. Just Emojis. And now, the iPhone app’s finally here.

Add me:

My username’s “Spouting Whale, Humpback Whale.”

Using the app

Unless you already know your friend’s emojiname, you may have trouble finding anyone to talk to at all. Emojli is a cold, empty place when you first log in. Luckily, a quick tweet yielded a few results: friend requests from “Running guy, Race Horse” and “Earbud, iPhone.”

That’s when I got my first message:

I decided to play it cool:

Later, friends started sharing their usernames with me, too. “You should friend request me,” one said, “I’m ‘hair-toss, flamenco girl.’”

“Added u,” said another, “I’m ‘French fry, Pizza.’”

Will Emojli be the next Yo? It’s difficult to tell. I spent a good five minutes trying to find the hair-toss emoji. But maybe I’m old fashioned? Sometimes, I even use proper grammar when I send text messages.

70,000 people signed up to use Emojli when it was first announced, and I’m one among thousands of people who will likely try the app out today. You might want to give the app a try, too. And if you need someone to emoji to, feel free to send me a wave.