World Emoji Day

Emoji's have been used since the beginning of the internet to transmit emotion in the written medium. As internet technology advanced, so did the use of the emoji, with previously pure text bits of ascii art turning into full-fledged animated faces and symbols.

We've all used them, and we're excited for the future of them! World Emoji day celebrates the history of these emotional expressions, and encourages you to be exceptionally emotive! After all, it's always nice to let someone know how you're feeling when you write, isn't it? Emoji's are just one more way!

Emoji day was put together as a celebration of the emoji, a textual expression of emotion that came about in the old days of Japanese mobile phones. From there, these pictographic displays of emotion exploded into worldwide use. The word "Emoji" is derived from the Japanese words e (for picture) and moji (for character), apparently the seeming connection to the words emotion and emoticon are purely incidental!

The date of Emoji Day honors the date shown on the iOS Calendar Emoji, it even has an anthem! (Check it out on YouTube, it's actually pretty catchy!) It's funny, isn't it, how the history goes around in circles? Long ago the world used to communicate in images, before alphabetic languages were developed, and now in the modern age we're back to using them again! Of course, now they're a lot more technologically advanced and move on their own, but they're still an amazing way of sharing how you feel and making people laugh.