This Wednesday World Emoji Day will be celebrated for the eleventh time, giving fans of the graphics a chance to pay tribute to them.
The pictograms have been becoming slowly more prominent on our devices over several decades and have now achieved all but ubiquity.
Originating from a humble simile, there are now thousands of emojis in existence and one of those, the calendar, actually displays the date of July 17 if you look closely.
According to a 2023 study, the most popular emoji in existence is the crying with laughter mark, followed by the ROFL, the red heart and the folded hands.
So what better day to mark emojis and their role in our lives?
What is World Emoji Day?
World Emoji Day is used to celebrate the pictogram, logogram, ideogram and smiles that now appear on our screens.
There is no official way of celebrating but you could use #WorldEmojiDay on social media, use extra emojis in your messages or perhaps watch The Emoji Movie - a 2017 film.
The day can also be used by companies to launch products, or by software developers to launch new emoji designs.
In the past, the Empire State Building was lit yellow in celebration, Kim Kardashian launched new Kimoji fragrances and the British Library held a talk about technology.
When did it begin being celebrated?
World Emoji Day was created by Jeremy Burge, the founder of Emojipedia - a complete inventory of all emoticons.
The July 17 date has always been used on the emoji calendar, so the day was preceded and not the other way around.
Novelist Vladimir Nabokov is credited for saying in the 1960s that he imagined a “special typographical sign for a smile” although it first appeared on computers in the 1990s.
They became mainstream in the 2010s with devices building in the graphics.
How to make your emoji idea come to life
There are currently 3,782 emojis in circulation but there is always room for one more.
The writing system script is put together by Unicode - a consortium which is now considered something of a gatekeeper for emojis getting onto devices.
Unicode does not accept many new ideas these days but you can make a submission for an idea here.
To get yours accepted, you will need:
Proof that it does not exist already
Evidence that this is a term people actually use
An ability to link your emoji idea to a single word or term
And your design must also not be advertising a brand.
Good luck! 🙂
