Microprocessing
Memoji Are Apple’s Greatest Invention Since the iPhone
The digital avatars are adorable — and an important form of expression
When I was about 10 years old, I loved American Girl. I read nearly all the historical books that were released alongside the dolls; Felicity, the spunky, freckled redhead from the Revolutionary War era, was my favorite, perhaps because she wasn’t a four-eyed nerd like Molly (I was a four-eyed nerd like Molly). While my parents were happy to supply me with as many American Girl books as I wanted, they refused to pony up $100 for either the Felicity doll or what I wanted just as much — the customizable Truly Me dolls, which allowed children to choose eye color, skin tone, and hair color to match their own. My daydreams of a mini me with brown hair, hazel eyes, and a cool, rebellious wardrobe sadly never came to fruition.
Now, two decades later, I finally have the digital equivalent of the Truly Me dolls: Memoji stickers. Basically a more refined version of Bitmoji, the stickers were widely released in sticker form this September as part of Apple’s iOS 13 update. Though I’ve been ambivalent about Apple products for some time now (I replaced my 2015 MacBook with a Dell a few weeks ago), I’m back in, at least on the iPhone front, with the glory that is my adorable…
