Every year on 17th July, people celebrate World Emoji Day. Emoji is a word that all of us use daily. The word emoji is said to be originated from the Japanese language. In Japanese, it means a picture word. Let’s take a look at the relevance of emoji in our day to day life. With the advancement of technology, our lives have primarily become virtual. We are in a habit of using electronic gadgets and internet services. Hence, the whole world seems to be just a touch away.
Given the current pandemic situation from the last one and a half years, virtual is the new normal. We are not able to meet our loved ones, workplaces have been shifted in our homes and pretty much everything is done through our electronic devices. You would be conversing with your friends, coworkers or family members with the help of messaging services. While chatting, almost all of us use emojis. Sometimes these emojis accompany a text and otherwise, they can be individually used! Sending an emoji is itself a message.
History of World Emoji Day
The first emoji was made by an engineer. The person worked in a Japanese mobile operating company. Moreover, Shigetaka Kurita designed 176 emojis for a mobile integrated service i-mode release. After that in 2010, Unicode eventually standardised the use of emoji. Therefore, international brands like Google, Twitter, Microsoft and Facebook introduced their versions of emojis. Still, Unicode 6.0 is the biggest release of emojis. It consists of 994 characters, having emoticons of hearts, clothes, flags, country, families, animals, clocks, city images and food.
The founder of Emojipedia, Jeremy Burge declared in 2014 that July 17 will be celebrated as World Emoji Day. Notably, on this day the ‘calendar’ emoji also shows the date as its image. Every year, we see on some platforms new and diverse emojis are being added. So, comment down below and tell us what’s your favourite this year?