Nigerian Millennials rejoice – now there are emojis that look like you and represent Naija culture!
Despite recent updates of a taco emoji, new skin tones and many other emojis, the standard emojis do not reflect Nigerian culture. Enter NaijaMoji, a startup app developed by Nigeria’s own Chimereze Oji, who became inspired to create NaijaMoji due to the lack of representation.
“As Nigerians, we are very proud of our culture and traditions and place an importance on continuing those traditions throughout the generations. NaijaMoji is a simple way for the next generation to stay in touch with our culture, both traditional culture and pop culture, especially for Nigerians living in the diaspora. Now messaging friends and family using NaijaMoji allows us to bond over and reaffirm our culture even though we may not live in Nigeria. We are still able to represent and celebrate what it means to be Nigerian everyday.”
The NaijaMoji keyboard features emojis from the following categories, food & drink, gestures, characters, sayings and objects – all of which are take cues from Nigerian culture. While there are other African emojis on the market, NaijaMoji is theonly emoji app designed specifically for Nigeria – the other apps are more board and not country specific. In addition, the design of NaijaMoji has a very close aesthetic to Apple’s iOS platform which give it a modern look. The keyboard makes using NaijaMoji as easy as regular text, simply toggle to the NaijaMoji keyboard, select the emoji and send in a text message.
Emojis continue to be an important way for people to express themselves and now Nigerians can express themselves authentically. NaijaMoji is available for download in Apple’s App store.