Bitmoji

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Bitmoji

"Bitmoji App on iPhone" text Type Mobile Application Launch Date 2014 Status Active Product Line Service Platform iPhone or Android Application Website Bitmoji Official Website

Bitmoji is a free service that allows users to create customized emojis. Snapchat, a popular social media application used to send pictures with short captions, acquired Bitmoji in 2016. This led to Bitstrips, the parent company of Bitmoji to become inoperative in the same year. After Snapchat acquired Bitmoji, the application became the number one downloaded application in Snapchat’s top 5 markets: US, UK, France, Canada, Australia. A user can style and design their Bitmoji character how they best see themselves and want others to see them. This Bitmoji can be used across various web-based services and is an alternative way of communicating through emojis. Bitmoji continues to dominate the technology markets as the software is compatible with IOS and Android software. However, as Bitmoji continues to expand, ethical implications of the features on the application continues to impose problems by the people who falsely represent themselves to others.

History

Bitmoji is a product of the company Bitstrips which was founded in 2008 by Toronto-based Jacob Blackstock and Jesse Brown. Post college, Blackston found himself in the cartoon and animation industry and was inspired by that experience to start Bitstrips. Bitstrips was originally developed to create customized comic strips for those with less creative capabilities. In 2014, Bitstrips created a spinoff called Bitmoji which is one of their services that provides users an alternative way to communicate with others through personalized emojis. As a brand of the Bitstrips company, Bitmoji fits into almost all social media platforms’ communication methods. The concept of Bitmoji’s fills a communication void humans have been facing without even knowing it. Today, cell phones and social media are common ways to communicate with others, but Bitmoji brings back a variation of face to face interaction over messaging with human-like characters.

How It Works

Face Features

When creating a Bitmoji, users are prompted to first take a selfie of themselves that the application will use to compare their real face structure to a cartoon one. After this initial step, users have the opportunity to customize their digital appearance through various features. Each feature is customizable in its own way to best encompass the variety of looks people have. Common features are available such as hair color, eye shape, lip size, facial hair, and ear shape etc. In addition to these features, the Bitmoji application also allows users to add or delete more specific features like how defined the jawline appears, cheek wrinkles, eyebrow color, and forehead lines. Having the power to change these features and portray a perfect image of oneself can impose its own implications.

Body Features

Apart from the facial features that Bitmoji gives users to customize the way they want, you can also customize the body features. Users can choose to portray themselves as larger or smaller through their stomach and waist size and alter breast and muscle size. This opportunity to choose physical features pressures users to fulfill social norms and expectations, which can lead to falsey representing themselves.

Outfit Choice

A creative feature that users get to choose from when creating their personalized Bitmoji is their outfit, allowing users to convey their personality through the style of their clothing. The application gives a variety of outfits from jerseys with specific team names to a classic hoodie and jean through their own fictional lines such as the Bitmoji Collection Users and Basics X Bitmoji. There are also several seasonal lines Bitmoji has such as Bitmoji Harvest, Brrrmoji, and Bitmoji Sun, all of which are available during any season of the year for users who enjoy dressing their Bitmoji to the season they're actually dressing for. Bitjmoji's clothing also allows the user to present information about the user. For examples, Bitmoji's can be dressed in a doctor's coat or a firefighter's helmet and jacket to show the occupation of the user. Additionally, for women, Bitjmoji offers maternity clothing that can represent a pregnant user. Users can portray themselves how they want to regardless if they actually have the same sense of style as used on their cartoon character. The plethora of options gives users the ability to customize their physical appearance to their liking and the opportunity to be something they're not in real life.

Brands

Bitmoji has partnered with several brands to offer its users branded clothing options. There are several sports-related clothing options such as Nike and Adidas as well as NHL, NFL, and NBA gear that allow users to show their support for their favorite teams. Additionally, some of the clothing brands represented on the mobile application hold a higher prestige than others and selecting one of the other can display a sense of wealth when communicating with a Bitmoji. Users accomplish this through the branded clothing options presented by partnerships with Forever21 and Steve Madden. Bitmoji has also advertised movie releases such as Ghostbusters and Batman V Superman by giving options for users to dress up like the actors from the movie.

What Bitmoji is Used For

On Snapchat, Bitmojis are primarily presented as stickers through the Bitmoji keyboard used during chats or added on top of snapped pictures. Bitmojis are also seen "live" when used through a filter on snap. Bitmojis can be seen doing regular activities such as playing sports or cooking meals and can even be seen interacting with other Bitmojis if the user is replying directly back to a friend.

Where Bitmoji is Used

Bitmojis are versatile in the way they can be used in many different messaging applications and websites. With compatibility functions to incorporate the Bitmoji software in IOS and Android processes, Bitmoji can be used on any application within those realms. For example, users can send their personalized Bitmoji via iMessage, Snapchat, and Google Chrome along with other messaging platforms. Through IOS, Bitmoji is enabled on a user’s phone by simply adding the Bitmoji keyboard in the settings options. Google play, for Android users, also accepts the Bitmoji keyboard through its Google Keyboard. Apart from the mobile application usage, Bitmojis can also be used on desktops. Google Chrome is a large proponent of Bitmojis and allows users to use them while communicating through platforms such as Google Mail and Google Messenger on a desktop. The seamless transition from using Bitmojis from mobile devices and tablets to desktops makes the service versatile in the methods is can be used to communicate with others around the world.

Ethical Concerns

Self-Representation

There is no page on the Bitmoji application that addresses the concern of misrepresentation of a user’s digital identity. A Bitmoji can represent someone in any way they like without being a true representation of who that person is physically. By altering face structure, body shape, clothing style, users can use this platform the create a real character that they want others to identify themselves with. Richard Mason described the four issues of information technology and one was accuracy. The accuracy of a Bitmoji character depends on the person who is creating it but also on the intentions used when adding different features to the personalized emoji. Bitmojis can be seen as a non-normative identity where users represent themselves in ways that might not be socially acceptable. However, this type of identity can also be represented by the way someone chooses to represent themselves to the world. When sifting through the different features, as mentioned above, a user has the opportunity to look younger, prettier, skinnier, and more athletic etc. Naturally, most people want to represent themselves in the best way possible and show that to those whom they communicate with. The concept of ethical acculturation explains that a user’s actual self is in sync with their online identity. When using a Bitmoji, ethical acculturation is impaired when there is a lack of balance between the true physical identity and the digital one. Smith and Watson explain that “ All self-presentation is performative - it’s manufactured.”. This explains that how we present ourselves is tailored to our needs and can be formulated in in a synthetic manner.

Aspirational Bitmoji

How people create a Bitmoji by carefully chosen features represents how someone wants to be perceived by others. In most cases, to choose a Detroit Lions jersey as the outfit for a Bitmoji, that would indicate that you are a fan of that team. It could also mean that you want whoever you are sending the Bitmoji too, to believe that you are a Detroit Lions’ fan. Bitmoji even allows users to dress their character in a professional attire such as a firefighter suit or a chef to demonstrate one’s career interests. Users can aspire to look like someone based on the features they select to use on their character. This aspiration can be a fake representation of what someone really wants to be just to please those who are viewing their cartoon avatar.

Constant Changes

Once a user creates a Bitmoji, they can go back as many times as they want to change different parts of its appearance. This can be deceiving to those who receive the Bitmoji because the appearance of one’s digital identity is changing to fit the model society has deemed ‘normal’ for people to look like. Whether it is having long or short hair, blue eyes or brown eyes, or a slimmer body, people can change how they want others to see them through this application. The ethics behind doing this derives from the misrepresentation of one’s self to please society. An avatar, as Sam and Watson explain, “facilitate identity tourism”. An embodied identity is not altered with someone’s avatar but the way someone uses it to represent themselves can impose ethical implications.

Privacy Concerns

Upon downloading Bitmoji, users are asked to grant the application "Full Keyboard Access" in order to use the application. While the company claims that this is necessary in order to render personal Bitmoji images on a user's device, user's have raised concerns about the application storing data about what they are typing. While the company claims they are not using keyboard access to gain and retain this information, it is not outside of their technical ability to do so. While the application does not record keystroke information, they do collect usage related data such as what types of stickers a user tends to send and from what kind of device they are sending from Although these are all agreed on by the user upon downloading, there is an ethical concern that data obtained about a user could be leaked or used without their explicit permission.