World Emoji Day: Let’s take a wink at the past
Emojis have become culturally significant symbols in our everyday lives. Let’s take a trip down memory lane to celebrate World Emoji Day.
EVERYONE with a cellphone has, at some stage or another, used an emoji.
Whether it be a classic thumbs-up, the ever-popular wink (😉) or heart emojis (♥️💔💕💜), or even the infamous purple aubergine (🍆).
Either way, these digital hieroglyphs have helped us add some emotion to our texts.
But where did this all start? In celebration of World Emoji Day, Caxton Local Media will be 👀 the history of these cherished colourful symbols.
The first form of emojis was known as emoticons – think phones before colour screens – that one had to create by typing out letters and punctuation marks. Examples include ;-) or :’D.
It has been widely reported that the emojis we are familiar with today started in Japan. The first-ever emoji or pictogram (which translates to emoji in Japanese) – a red heart – is said to have been created by Shigetaka Kurita in 1999 for one of the country’s mobile carriers, NTT DOCOMO’s pager.
Soon after, the popularity of emojis exploded in Japan, and rival companies started to copy the idea, and it did not take long for international companies to follow suit.
Kurita went on to create a total of 176 emojis – all of which are on display at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
However, around 2019, reports started to suggest that SoftBank, a competitive carrier, had, in fact, created the first emoji set as early as 1997.
The coloured icons became such a massive part of all forms of digital communication platforms that in 2007, Google launched a petition to have emojis recognised by the non-profit organisation, Unicode Consortium, to facilitate the standardisation of emojis across all digital devices and platforms.
It was only three years later that Unicode Consortium would officially adopt emojis. Since then, the list of emojis has grown exponentially.
There is even an Emojipedia, a website that documents emojis and their individual meanings – as per the Unicode standard.
World Emoji Day – which is, to date, an unofficial holiday – was celebrated for the first time on 17 July 2014.
It is said that the 17th was adopted as the commemoration date as it is the date reflected on the calendar emoji.
The following year, the Face with Tears emoji (😂) was actually chosen as the ‘word of the year’ by Oxford Dictionaries.
It is no surprise then that in 2016, dozens of major brands from around the world commemorated #WorldEmojiDay on social media.
Raise your #Coke for #WorldEmojiDay! Show us your favourite emoji! #TasteTheFeeling pic.twitter.com/jk9drOZ9Ew
— Coca-Cola GB (@CocaCola_GB) July 17, 2016
Happy #WorldEmojiDay! 🍔 😊 pic.twitter.com/4vFKx2JfnF
— McDonald's UK (@McDonaldsUK) July 17, 2016
Thanks to all your support, our researchers are fighting for every heartbeat every single day. #WorldEmojiDay pic.twitter.com/up9jgyd6iG
— BHF (@TheBHF) July 17, 2016
It was only in 2016 – also in celebration of World Emoji Day – that emojis became representational of working women.
On 17 July 2016, the new occupational emojis, for both women and men – in all skin tones – became available (👩🏾✈️👩🌾👨🚒👩🏿🔧👩🏽⚖️👩🎨👩🍳👩🏻🏫).
We’re celebrating #WorldEmojiDay with over 300 new emoji to help better represent women. https://t.co/sIfffsuAmk pic.twitter.com/mRRirJOgaR
— Google (@Google) July 17, 2016
In 2017, the annual celebrations continued to grow as a very unlikely pairing occurred. The London Royal Opera House got in on the action – by getting people on Twitter to guess the name of a ballet or opera show via a series of emojis.
It really highlighted just how expansive our choice of emojis had become. Check these out below, and see if you make an accurate guess!
2. Guess the ballet. RT and DM us your guess to enter the prize draw.
🙍👵👵🏠💌👑💇👗👡🎃🐀🏰🎉😍💑🌙🕛💨👡🏃👡👏💖💍👰#WorldEmojiDay
— Royal Opera House (@RoyalOperaHouse) July 17, 2017
3. Guess the opera. RT and DM us your guess to enter the prize draw.
🇫🇷💁🎉🍾🥂🍷🤒💑🥀💰💔🤺😵☠#WorldEmojiDay
— Royal Opera House (@RoyalOperaHouse) July 17, 2017
The year 2017 also marked a whole new commemoration of World Emoji Day – the launch of The Emoji Movie, which starred Sir Patrick Stewart (think Captain Jean-Luc Picard of Star Trek or Professor X in X-Men) as the Poop emoji (💩). Think I am lying? Go ahead, Google that…
Sony Pictures Animation announced that ticket sales would be available on 17 July 2017.
In 2018 and 2019, the diversity of emojis grew even more.
In 2018, we saw the arrival of emojis to represent bald, ginger and grey and curly-haired people (👩🦰👴🏿👩🦳👩🏾🦲)
The selection also featured exotic animals, including the kangaroo (🦘), the parrot (🦜), the lobster (🦞) as well as a mango (🥭) and the lettuce (🥬).
Perfect reason to 🥳🎉🎊!
While 2019 ushered in representation for the disabled communities, with emojis of wheelchairs (👨🦼👩🦼), robotic/ prosthetic limbs (🦿🦾), a person with a walking cane (👩🦯) and guide dogs (🐕🦺) among others.
Ginger emojis will launch next week, along with bagels, superheroes and toilet paper https://t.co/aatq71BKc1 pic.twitter.com/lfulhvpTDF
— Insider Business (@BusinessInsider) June 1, 2018
Apple celebrates 'World Emoji Day' by adding emojis with guide dog, wheelchair in effort to be more inclusive https://t.co/Fpbjiiz03F pic.twitter.com/lQt35M4kMu
— WISN 12 NEWS (@WISN12News) July 17, 2019
Last year, there had been talks of representation for the trans community in emojis – particularly in terms of a ‘pregnant man’ emoji.
Reports follow a tweet by Emojipedia. However, only time will tell where we will go next with these culturally significant icons 🙌.
🥳 For #WorldEmojiDay which draft emoji candidate are you most looking forward to? 🗳️ Vote now: https://t.co/r13ggFy0gq pic.twitter.com/BaUtTyZgux
— Emojipedia (@Emojipedia) July 15, 2021
