Today marks the fifth annual World Emoji Day, a celebration of those small cartoon objects and faces that have become part of our every day communication.
To celebrate we are taking a look at the top five emoji related facts that you may not know, take a look below:
The first emoji
We owe the emoji to Shigetaka Kurita from Japan, who created the first collection of emojis in 1999 for NTT Docomo i-mode, a mobile internet system. Characters in an email were limited to 250 so Kurita developed the emoji as a way for users to express themselves in a quick way. These original emojis are now on display at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
Emoji of the year
Every year on this date Twitter users vote during the World Emoji awards, choosing categories such as most anticipated and most popular emoji of the year. This year’s emoji of the year is the smiling face with hearts.
Oxford Dictionary
Emoji was officially added to the Oxford English Dictionary in August 2013, described as ‘a small digital image or icon used to express an idea or emotion’. The word was named ‘word of the year’ in 2015.
How many emojis?
Developers are continually adding to the range of emojis on offer, as of April 2019 there were an astounding 3019 official emojis on offer for users.
Snoop Dogg
At the annual World Emoji Awards last year, Snoop Dogg won the award for ‘excellence in emoji use’, for his consistent use of these characters in his tweets.
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